San Francisco Opera: The Magic Flute

(Catching up on last June's offerings at San Francisco Opera, part 1. . . .)

There's always something that pulls us back to operas we may think we've seen often enough; in the case of San Francisco Opera's Magic Flute, it was the celebrated production by Barrie Kosky, usually described as the "silent film" staging, which of course grabbed my interest.

Silent film is definitely a major influence, but the designers clearly also looked at graphic novels, anime, surrealist collages, & comic books; I've heard some people describe the constantly shifting projections as exhausting, but they could just as easily be seen as exhilarating. On the whole I enjoyed the production, but was surprised by some of its limitations.

It does some things extremely well; this is the first production I've seen in which the trials by fire & water carry some weight & seem like actual trials .The whole quest/fairy tale aspect comes out very strongly. The use of silent-film style intertitles relieves us from the generally tedious comedy of the spoken dialogue. (But this has the unfortunate effect of depriving Papagena of some of her most winning moments.)

On the debit side of the ledger, the actions of the singers are extremely circumscribed: one limb awry & the illusion from the seamless projections falls apart. Also, the singers are mostly isolated from each other, often perched midway up the stage & addressing someone down below or off to the side. This is not an opera in which psychological realism is paramount, of course, but it does have a warm human heart that beats a little less vigorously when everyone is physically so separated.

There are specific silent-film references made in the costuming, some of which work better than others. I have never seen a production in which I thought so much about Pamina's hair; she's given the iconic Louise Brooks bob, but . . . is Pamina really a Louise Brooks type? I pondered whether the character would be better off with the golden tresses of the ethereal Lillian Gish, or Mary Pickford's tighter, spunkier blonde sausage curls. Papageno has Buster Keaton's porkpie hat, but Keaton's deadpan but sensitive calibration of on-coming disaster isn't really a Papageno quality (would Chaplin's pleasure-seeking but poignant Tramp be a better fit?). Monostatos is made up like Murnau's Nosferatu, which neatly avoids the ugly racial aspect of the lustful villain. The Queen of the Night mostly appears as a giant spider, which is striking & effective (though, again with the quibbles, shouldn't she at least initially be more immediately appealing?).The racial remarks can be pruned, but the anti-female aspects are too baked in to the libretto to be expunged. My audience mostly reacted to the more egregiously misogynistic remarks with laughter, which seems like the most sensible response under the circumstances.

I think the constraints of the production, striking & memorable as the production is, affected the performers; all of them had moments when I thought they were excellent, & others when I thought they were a bit overwhelmed. (Amitai Pati was Tamino, Lauri Vasar the Papageno, Anna Siminska the Queen of the Night, Zhengyi Bai the Monostatos, Christina Gansch the Pamina, Kwangchul Youn the Sarastro, Arianna Rodriguez the Papagena, & Olivia Smith, Ashley Dixon, & Maire Theresa Carmack respectively the First, Second, & Thirdd Ladies). Eun Sun Kim led a sprightly & noble rendiiton.

I was very glad to have a chance to see this production, even if it struck me as a big more of a mixed bag than I had hoped. But even when I decide I've seen the Magic Flute often enough, I end up glad I went.