WHAT is one to make of this unimaginably silly story, this pantomime, and religion and allegory and vaudeville? Only that it is Mozart's most sublime music, that it is an opera so unique and so heavenly that no production can do it real injustice.
The Arts Festival production was not wholly right, the voices hardly perfect. Yet it possessed what is most essential in any Magic Flute - that sense of magic and timelessness.
The era could have been any time. The set, with its endless pictures of architecture, real and fantastic, the mixture of religions, from an Islamic mithrab to a Roman god, and the mixture of costumes would have done Mozart proud.
No, he wouldn't have been able to figure out the era. But does this matter, with the eternal verities at stake? The voices had an equal mixture. One always bemoans the poor soul who has to play Tamino, the Eagle Scout cum Lone Ranger in search of true marriage. But Mark Nicolson was simply too weak to carry off his great arias.
Obviously Paganeo - the Jerry Lewis/Sancho Panza companion - has more fun. And Francois le Roux was delightful.
Equally wonderful was his old-young lady friend, Yim Yai. It was she, more than any female, who carried off the drama, the fun, even the slapstick of the opera.
One must mention Elena Brilova, the Queen of the Night, who has the most difficult aria in all opera.
