Daisy Evans’ psychedelic and frenetic modern reworking dodges the problems of the original but loses much of Mozart’s magic and energy in the process – and the flute itself.
The libretto the way around racism and misogyny
Mozart and Schikaneder’s mixture of pantomime and mason (to some, one and the same) and the triumph of good over evil count among the most popular of all operas, but today The Magic Flute has also become one of the most problematic. Has gone. In the Welsh National Opera’s new staging, director Daisy Evans’ way around his acknowledged racism and misogyny is to rewrite the libretto, creating a “modern reworking”, common use of color, glowing globes, and LED strip batons. on funked-up psychedelia.
The biggest thing for the Masonic ritual Sect of Sarastro
Evans’ backstory accompanies the overture, which chronicles young Pamina and Tamino, childhood friends, suddenly separated when Pamina is taken away from her estranged mother, Queen of the Night, by Sarastro, King of the Day. . In her kingdom, Monostatos, the hunter Blackmoor, becomes a camp science teacher whose lessons Pamina finds boring. The biggest to Masonic ritual is one of the sects of Sarastro – here called geeks, and dressed in yellow-short playsuits – with one leg rolled up.
Following darth vader lines in headgear
The Magic Flute’s spoken dialogue is always intriguing, especially here for the new plot angles and often gibberish English, such as when the speaker, Chuma Sijeka – all in white, headgear following Darth Vader lines – compares his speeches to his own. I present less well. Powerful bass sound. The second of the two acts seemed never-ending.
A pair of luminescent drumsticks
Somehow the business of problem-solving has managed to undermine the very magic that is Mozart, its inherent connection to music and narrative: no flute but a lightsaber, no magic bells but a pair of luminescent drumsticks brandished around. The deadly serpent is a sheet, there are no animals to charm, just puppet birds here, there and everywhere.
