Metropolitan Opera Archives

To an audience conditioned to the fantastic mixture of religious symbolism, secret order hocus pocus and sheer horseplay which is the libretto of "The Magic Flute," Mozart's operatic masterpiece remains the most enchanting opera in the entire repertoire.

Its flaws are many, yes (and some of them were emphasized in last night's production), but those flaws are not in the music. On the contrary, one would have as arduous an ordeal as Tamino himself to find a single moment when Mozart's incredible inspiration falters. To those in the audience yet to fully know the intoxication of Mozart's music, "The Magic Flute" is perhaps a curiously uneven entertainment. To Mozartians, it is incomparable.

All this, of course, depends upon a performance commensurate with the glories of the score. Last night's performance was good, but seldom really distinguished. The cast, not differing in great detail from that which sang the opera here two years ago, sang well in almost every instance, yet no individual reached his peak, and the opera for reasons not wholly clear to me at the moment, never quite soared off the ground.

Nadine Conner, singing Pamina, achieved the most consistently beautiful singing. Aside from the lovely vocal quality she achieved at all times, she characterized her part most successfully throughout and conveyed much of the ineffably tender quality of the role. Ezio Pinza, singing the role of Sarastro (which lies a little too low in register for him to traverse really comfortably), illuminated the truth of Shaw's famed remark to the effect that Sarastro's music is the only music which would not be out of character in the mouth of God. Mr. Pinza has been better vocally, but surely there was never so dignified, so noble, and so awesome a Sarastro.

Charles Kullman has made the part of Tamino, whose esoteric pilgrim's progress through the mysteries of the Masonic order (amongst other things) is the subject of the opera, particularly his own. He sang it well enough last night, and always with dignity and conviction. In the comedy relief part of Papageno, John Brownlee achieved a considerable audience success, proving especially apt in the delivery of the spoken lines and in the singing of the marvelous "Bei Mannern" duet with Pamina. Others in the cast contributed admirable moments, notable among them being Audrey Bowman for her light but true singing of the coloratura Queen of the Night role. Both sets of women trios, incidentally, were fine.

The orchestra, once it got going, played excellently under Bruno Walter's peculiarly tender and melancholy direction, and often stole the opera quite away from the singers themselves. The obvious flaw in the production was the lighting. It is a difficult piece to stage and light in the first place without destroying the continuity made frail through the many scene changes, but it did seem that such technical problems could have long ago been overcome. However, there was always the music itself to hear, and one could ask for no more than the opportunity to hear such exalted music performed as excellently as it was.

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