Reviews
THE MAGIC FLUTE

Flute sans splutters

Musical director Brian Chatterton announced at interval that due to problems with the sound re-inforcement system the performance would continue unamplified.

'The gods are against us," he added. My prayers were answered. No longer did we have to put up with splutters and blasts.

In the natural amphitheatre of the hillside at Mt Lofty Botanical Gardens, every word and every note of Co-Opera's production of Die Zauberflote was carried.

Only when singers faced the audience on the side away from the hill did we have to listen closely.

Tessa Bremner re-thought the opera for this Adelaide Festival Fringe 2000 season. The liberetto is much maligned by those who fail to see that it's about a younger generation which finds that what it's been brought up to believe is good is in fact evil and what has been condemned actually has value.

Bremner brought this out, setting Die Zauberflote on the verge of the 1960s revolution when beehives and lacquer still ruled in a continuation of '50s materialism and façade, exemplified by Teresa La Rocca's Queen of the Night and her Three Ladies. Sadly, we really didn't see a beaded guru Sarastro, but Robert England sang well, as did La Rocca, perched high on a gibbet-like structure.

Ken Marshall brought down the house (or would have, had there been one) as Monostatos. The lightest tones from the Pamina and Tamino of Imogen Roose and Lindsey Day floated effortlessly in the freezing air.

But the delight of this production was the young baritone David Thelander, whose appealing voice and manner were topped by his astounding playing of the chimes.

Papageno's character epitomised this Flute: youthful, naïve and lovable.

John Lanigan-O'Keefe, Opera Opera, April 2000.

Opera for the people in a rural setting

When Voyager 2 left the Earth 1977 it carried a gold LP with examples of the music of our planet, including a song from The Magic Flute by Mozart, and after seeing this masterpiece in Wodonga on Saturday night, it is easy to see why.

The performance presented by Co-Opera, and Adelaide based company whose aim is to take opera directly to the public in country Australia.

A more rural setting than the Wodonga showground would be difficult to imagine, and on a simple builder's scaffold set on the sawdust floor of the stud sales arena a young talented cast played to a large and particularly enthusiastic audience.

This production was notionally set in a 1960s restaurant rather than ancient Egypt, and a variety of bizarre characters including a chicken salesman, an evil chef, the head waiter, two bouncers and a trio of female backing vocalists worked to confound the inevitable love match of the hero and heroine.

Despite the entertaining interplay between the cast and audience, the music was pure Mozart.

Tasso Bouyessis and Teresa La Rocca played Tamino and Pamina, and though both had relatively light voices their portrayal of the young lovers had many beautiful moments. La Rocca's voice in particular had a delicate innocence well suited to the role.

In the comedy part of Papageno, Grant Doyle delighted all with a very physical performance, often moving among the audience as he sang.

It will be difficult for anyone who saw the show to ever again hear this role without seeing Doyle in a outlandish combination of baseball cap, colourful shirt, tracksuit pants and sneakers and carrying a rubber chicken.

The three women, Jillian Chatterton, Barbara Rennison and Belinda Paterson, were excellent as they combined some fine ensemble singing with a level of comic interpretation Mozart might not have imagined.

The challenging Queen of the Night was played by Deidre Allyson, and although she is a promising coloratura, her wide and rather slow vibrato often blurred the fast moving lines of her arias.

Musical director Brian Chatterton played piano with a mature sense of the variety of singing styles required in this work.

Finally, 16 choristers from Albury-Wodonga sang in the chorus, adding richness to the performance and a real sense that opera really should be for the people, not just viewed at a distance in large public buildings.

Gregory Lewis, Bordermail, Albury/Wodonga, Monday 18 Sept 1995.

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