The Magic Flute

It’s “Harry Potter meets Star Wars” ... at least, according to Christopher Lawrence’s programme notes. Mozart’s The Magic Flute may be over 200 years old, but this production has done everything possible to bring the opera into the 21st century – cutting large chunks of the music, translating the libretto into modern English and giving it a set like something out of a sci-fi film. Oh, and lots of giant puppets.

Julie Taymor, famous for her wonderfully creative production of The Lion King, originally designed this Magic Flute for The Met Opera. She is certainly second to none when it comes to production design. Her puppets (designed with Michael Curry) and her costumes draw on inspiration from such extremes as Native America and Ancient Egypt and certainly bring to life this “mythical land between the sun and the moon”.

Yet, despite the entrancing verve in every piece of fabric and in Mark Dendy’s choreography, the magic in this performance never really translated from the stage to the audience. Perhaps it’s because the production is aimed squarely at the kids – wherever they were. Certainly there were none sitting near me, and that’s a shame, because the adults never really managed to loosen up and fully enjoy themselves. This is, after all, still opera and some of the singers also seemed a little too caught up in the art form to get into the spirit of what has always been, no matter which century it’s staged in, a musical comedy.

Luckily, there were some notable exceptions. Jane Parkin, Victoria Lambourn and Tania Ferris as the Queen of the Night’s three ladies made for a fabulous opening – their voices mellifluous and radiant as they saved the fainting Prince Tamino from the serpent and spent a while standing round to admire him.

Elsewhere, Kanen Breen as Monostatos inhabited his hilariously villainous costume with gusto and full-voiced brilliance. Andrew Jones, however, stole the show – as Papageno always should. His relaxed stage presence and vocal energy suffused every note and movement with lively character.

Andrew Brunsdon, as the noble but nervous Prince Tamino, faltered vocally in parts although he opened up confidently in later arias. As his enslaved Princess, Hyeseoung Kwon made a very sweet-voiced Pamina, although both the lovers seemed to suffer from not having enough to do under Matthew Barclay’s sometimes uneven direction.

Suzanne Shakespeare and David Parkin – as the Queen of the Night and her nemesis, Sarastro – gave splendid renditions of their arias. Shakespeare only fully let loose in the top register; but what a top! Parkin struggled a little with his impossibly low notes but made up for it in gravitas while Shakespeare was a tad too nice for the evil Queen.

Under the baton of Andrew Greene, the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra were light-fingered and deft while the chorus were superb. As a night at the opera this is easy on the ears and great on the eye, but make sure you take along a young Harry Potter fan – if nothing else, they’ll be gob-smacked by the three tuneful boys in the beards.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Opera Australia presents
The Magic Flute By Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Reproduced by Opera Australia from the original production by The Metropolitan Opera, New York

Sydney Opera House, Opera Theatre
6 January–23 March 2012
Bookings and info: www.opera-australia.org.au

Update: Opera Australia has contacted artsHub to relay the information that on the night Jennie attended there were, in fact, 305 youth tickets sold "and of these, children under 17 represented a total of 52 tickets".