<<  -- 16 --  Roderic Dunnett    WIT AND ORIGINALITY

The seriousness of all this in the opera has to be driven home and underlined, or else set in relief, by the comedy, which is (paradoxically) an enabler of, and a vehicle for, the serious message. Incidentally the Vienna Freemasons, to whom both he and Mozart belonged, ought to have paid Schikaneder: he was virtually preaching their sermon, and broadcasting it free of charge.

There's a splendid scene along these lines near the close, where devilish fiends emerge from trapdoors (good use was made of these during the show -- Garsington has devised several) and resonantly intone an impressive hellish chorus (closer, in some ways and paradoxically, to the noble choruses of The Magic Flute. Is the devil in danger of getting the best -- or at least the grandest -- tunes?

As with some detail in The Flute, the moment is almost Wagnerian: Nibelheim suddenly opens up and we have a full-blooded forging scene, one of the best and most overtly dramatic moments in Cox's Garsington staging. Later much was made, in a rather traditional directorial way, of knives and swords emerging in rather Lady of the Lake manner. Yet this scene was atmospheric too, and much of the later stage paraphernalia was made to work well.

Continue >>