Great singing ensures Mozart’s magical fairytale hits its mark

Outstanding cast makes sure that Mozart’s perennial favourite fairytale is a sure-fire Opera Australia hit.

Ben Mingay as Papageno and Stacey Alleaume as Pamina in The Magic Flute. Picture: Keith Saunders.

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In his hugely enjoyable fairytale The Magic Flute, Mozart masterfully disguises serious themes about the meaning of life and the search for enlightenment under the umbrella of Freemasonry, of which he and the librettist were followers.

It was Mozart’s last opera, conducted by himself, with his sister-in-law, Josepha Hofer, playing the Queen of the Night, and the librettist, Emanuel Schikaneder, singing the comic role of the bird-catcher Papageno.

A few months after that 1791 opening night in Vienna, Mozart was dead; his work lives on, a perennial favourite around the world.

At first glance, Opera Australia’s production smacks of something like a school play: a single unprepossessing set with no props, curtains whizzing sideways at the hand of a passing cast member to reflect changes of scene or mood, torchlight shadows of cut-out birds on background sheets.

Even Michael Yeargan’s interior from an old production of Werther gets new life, with doors either side and a central ramp leading off who knows where.

Glamorous it is not. Likewise, designer Anna Cordingley has placed only the high priest, Zoroastro, the Queen of the Night and Papagena in vivid dress; the rest are mostly in a dull mixture of modern clothes.

Indyana Schneider as Second Lady, Jane Ede as First Lady, Ben Mingay as Papageno and Ruth Strutt as Third Lady. Pictures: Keith Saunders.

And yet, the essential joy of the music, sung with delicacy and feeling, together with the comic appeal of the cast, overcome all these things.

Australian-Mauritian soprano Stacey Alleaume, a vibrant performer with an excellent grasp of the score’s subtleties, played Pamina, the Queen of the Night’s daughter.

Stacey has come a long way. From Year 10 work experience at Opera Australia, she is now one of the company’s principal sopranos, due in no small part to her luscious voice, as evidenced on opening night with her Act 2 rendering of Now I know that love can vanish (yes, the opera is sung in English).

Australian-Italian soprano Giuseppina Grech made an imposing Queen of the Night. Not for her a second’s hesitation as she launched into one of the opera world’s most challenging arias, Hell’s Vengeance Boils In My Heart, delivered with conviction and raw power.

No small feat since the work calls for coloratura with fast repetition of a high C and reaching several top Fs, with complicated changes of pitch.

Baritone Ben Mingay, best known as Buzz Graham in TV’s Packed to the Rafters, made an amiable Papageno with an Aussie flavour (the last performer who took this approach was the immensely talented Warwick Fyfe, who if I remember correctly came on stage clutching a can of Foster’s). In Ben’s case, it was an Esky.

Ben made his professional opera debut in this production although he had sung in a school production of The Magic Flute in 2000.

He was originally a construction worker from Newcastle who was dared to audition for the Conservatorium of Music by his mates. He subsequently won a scholarship, an event that changed his life.

Michael Smallwood as Tamino was a delight.

Michael Smallwood’s easy tenor and delicacy of tone were a delight. He played the wandering prince Tamino, who joins Papageno to rescue Pamina from Sarastro.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard a bass reach as far down the depths of the music scale as David Parkin but he acquitted himself well, despite being made up to look like one of those old storybook pictures of Jesus, presumably a deliberate ploy.

I’ve saved one of the best aspects of the opera for last: tenor Kanen Breen almost steals the show, once again, as Monostatos, the scheming unscrupulous and cowardly captain of Sarastro’s guard and secret admirer of Pamina.

His reputation as the clown prince of opera is well deserved and nowhere was this more obvious than on opening night when he delivered much of the laughs with immaculate timing and obvious relish.

The diminutive figure of Austrian-Spanish conductor Teresa Riveiro Bohm kept the pot boiling, so to speak, with brisk efficiency and an obvious understanding of the libretto.

Kate Gaul’s production is brave and slightly flawed but the charm of Mozart’s music and the talent of the cast outshines whatever reservations may linger about the treatment.

DETAILS

• OPERA The Magic Flute

• STARS Stacey Alleaume, Michael Smallwood, Ben Mingay, David Parkin, Jennifer Black, Kanen Breen

• AT Sydney Opera House

• UNTIL March 16

• BOOKINGS 9318 8200 or https://opera.org.au/