<<  -- 8 --  Roderic Dunnett    WIT AND ORIGINALITY

Not unnaturally, given our concentration on the acknowledged gems of the repertoire (but also a woefully limited repertoire), one tends to think of Mozart's The Magic Flute as not just in a class of its own, but as standing almost alone amongst operas of the late 18th century, perhaps reaching out tentacles to the more imaginative operettas of the late 19th century and turn of the 20th century.

Yet with its own brand of noble gravitas, its reflection on Enlightenment virtues, its depiction of 'fallen' individuals at both human and quasi-divine level -- Eutifronte (compare and contrast the Queen of the Night) representing the latter and the hopeless Lubano (compare Papageno, passim) the former, plus its two scintillating and vastly extended, several-scene finales, The Philosophers' Stone is, actually, another Magic Flute. All it really needs to come up trumps is one or two additional knockout arias, a truly insightful production, and perhaps a slightly more judicious arrangement than Schikaneder effects here. On the musical front, incidentally, the attractive if jobbing bits of Mozart borrowed partly for their metre and neatly tucked in by conductor Steuart Bedford -- even when hailing from such glorious scores as Lo sposo deluso and Thamos, re d'Egitto (both mature 1780s works) -- didn't really sound a patch on Henneberg here).

It has to be said that John Cox's Garsington production looked splendid. Peter Ruthven Hall's costume designs, splendidly conceived and beautifully executed, were a constant delight; only a few oddments, like Astromonte's wiggery, proved a bit of a dud. The chorus costumes were equally successful. The bits of Orphic, Masonic, Enlightenment and Da Vinci Code paraphernalia scattered around the stage were stylish, and appealingly set the scene. Much of the Garsington loggia could be seen as a backdrop, and voices were reflected by it attractively. I was especially fortunate being (by default) at the very front: I heard everything directly without boomerang effect, the instrumemntal playing rising straight up from the pit and the singing issuing straight from the stage. But the acoustic works anway: wherever you sit, Garsington tends to sound terrific.

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