<<  -- 18 --  Roderic Dunnett    WIT AND ORIGINALITY

There's a powerful moment, too, which communicated itself nicely in Ashley Catling's committed singing of Nadir, if not quite in his acting: it's when the hero, who has lost touch with his beloved (in much the way that Tamino and Pamina will be separated for initiation purposes the following year), loses faith in Astromonte -- unbeknowns to him, his father -- and threatens and virtually curses him: 'Schenke mir Nadine wieder! Sonst reiss ich deinen Wohnsitz nieder!' -- 'Set Nadine free or I'll dethrone you!'

Nadir, of course, doesn't know that Astromonte is his real father. But we do, and dramatic irony is at play here. As an image of filial individuation from a dominant father-figure (let alone a deity), and even growing family insurrection, this outburst (strongly and dramatically set to music by Johann Henneberg) could scarcely be more effective. It's one of many moments where The Philosophers' Stone proves itself much more than a pale pre-empting of The Magic Flute. Fathers and sons: Uranus and Cronos, Cronos and Zeus, Wotan and Siegfried (Wotan being the in loco parentis figure). However this wasn't that impressive a sequence here, partly because neither Catling nor Garsington's finely, broadly delivered Astromonte, Iain Paton, were quite possessed of the stage presence or dramatic imagination to make it so; rather, this felt like just another moment rather loosely glossed over.

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