Die Zauberflöte

It's no surprise that I have reached the age of nearly forty without ever seeing Die Zauberflöte live. Don't be surprised if I wait until I am eighty before seeing it again.

The first act is long, the second act is even longer. Indeed the second act is as long as Wozzeck. I would far rather sit through Wozzeck. There are three reasons to like Die Zauberflöte. One of them is that some of the music is fabulous. Another is that David McVicar's production is rather fun. But, having seen a few on DVD, I suspect it's easy enough to make a fun production. I recently watched the Glyndebourne/Hockney production and it seemed familiar, perhaps I had watched it in my childhood. If so, it came very close to putting me off opera for life, which would have been quite regrettable at age 9.

The third good thing is Simon Keenlyside. Indeed it became for me an opera of two parts: those when Ickle Shirtless was on stage and those when he wasn't. Not that I'm saying the rest of the cast were bad, they weren't. Just that most of them lacked any stage presence or charisma. Steven Milling was excellent as Sarastro, I could tell. And Kishani Jayasinghe almost stole the show as Papagena.

But there are and were too many bad things about it. The story is total tosh and I simply don't care about the characters. I sort of like the utter bitchiness of the Queen of the Night, but I was disappointed by the delivery of that aria. A few weeks ago I spent an evening watching some fantastic deliveries on YouTube from Diana Damrau and Edita Gruberova, inter alia. I believe that our QotN makes a career singing tis role but she didn't live up to those illustrious divas.

The music is by Mozart, whose Figaro I adore, but I feel his Cosi and Don G could benefit from judicious editing, great though they are. I think Flute could do with even more editing. Indeed, I have a CD (one disc) of highlights. That's just about enough Flute.

All that masonic crap is utterly tedious. The misogyny is of its time, and shouldn't be censored, but does nothing to enamour me to the work. There are considerable longeurs when various singers are singing pretty, but I really don't care.

No production is so great it can rescue a dismal work, not even when the director is the great god David McVicar. Great arias are great arias, but can be enjoyed in isolation in the comfort of one's own home.

So that leaves me with Simon Keenlyside to savour. I have caught him in concert rep, and in a concert opera. I walked out in the interval of Pelleas because it was musically/production-wise ghastly, notwithstanding fab performances from Messrs Keenlyside and Finley and Frau Kirchschlager. I caught him when he was in poor vocal form in Iphigenie. So, finally, I get to appreciate the full glory of Simon Keenlyside. He was the difference between a bad night out and the salvaging of something very special to remember. His singing was flawless - when I say Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen sounded just like it does on his CD, Tales of Opera, trust me  that is praise. His portrayal of the character was entirely convincing,from his rather hunched walk, to his comic timing, and, naturally, his athleticism, including a sort of somersault across stage (tumbling is, I think, the technical term for it) and his flying leap to join Papagena in bed.

Still, he said in a recent interview that he's learning the role of Wozzeck. We know that Wozzeck is planned for a future season at ROH, so perhaps that will star Shirtless. If so, I very much look forward to that, much more than to a future performance of Zauberflöte.

There was a slight comedy moment at curtain call when Simon and Stephen realised they were next to each other and Stephen patted Simon on the head. Stephen is 200 cm (I asked his manager, who was sitting next to me at Die Walküre; she asked him, he told her, she told me) and I'm sure someone's said that Simon is about 5'6". So, that's quite a difference...

Oh, and just for the record, Simon's shirt stayed resolutely on, but his trousers did come down.

I also missed the live falcon. I'm a bit thick sometimes.