<<  -- 10 --  Roderic Dunnett    WIT AND ORIGINALITY

The Garsington character who came closest to achieving the comic touch -- perhaps not surprisingly -- was the baritone Leigh Melrose as Lubano. The spoofster and the Papageno of the piece, Lubano has a large hand in the comedy, and Melrose, if not quite as slick and rubbery a character as Guthrie's almost surreal creation, brought plenty of impishness and mock-confidential knowingness to the role, catching the comic tone quite subtly as nobody else did.

Michael Druiett (Eutifronte, the evil brother deity) sailed close to the wind, by playing up the pantomime dame possibilities of the role. Yet in a way Druiett, whose first entry 'Ich bin's, zittre nicht,' was clever and effective, was right: audiences at the Theater auf der Wieden didn't turn up for philosophical admonition: they came precisely to see a pantomime dame or a magic bird, to hear a set of jingles and lap up Schikaneder's comic asides; and hopefully to split their sides with helpless laughter.

We nearly got that in Cox's staging, which kept teetering, albeit sporadically, on the edge of something clever; but not quite. Much of this production, despite generous audience laughter (British summer opera audiences will titter at the slightest prompting, however banal or hackneyed; but that's part of the point of this piece) was frankly too staid, too po-faced. There were few belly-laughs and not nearly enough sophisticated comedy to tickle the palate either.

Accordingly one is left wondering what Richard Jones or Joseph Ward, let alone a John Caird or Nicholas Hytner, would have done with this unwieldy but sparkling gem? It was notable that -- as so often -- the best stage performers were in fact the children (green dwarves or imps), a couple of whom, aged no more than eight or nine, deserved to (but resolutely didn't) steal the show: not with their cuteness, or tweeness -- but by their sheer professionalism.

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