The Magic Flute (Opera North). Theatre Royal, Nottingham. 22 November 2024.

5✩✩✩✩✩ Review: William Ruff

“Mozart’s Flute is truly magical in Opera North’s revelatory production”

It’s easy to see why Mozart’s The Magic Flute is often recommended for a child’s first opera outing.  There’s magic everywhere and plenty of stage spectacle to involve the imagination.  Its ingredients include three children in important roles (and lots of others besides) plus some intriguing number puzzles: three ladies, three temples, three solemn chords in the overture and elsewhere.  Then there’s a jolly birdcatcher, a spookily ambiguous Queen of the Night – and in Opera North’s hi-tech production, plenty of digital wizardry to make sure eyes are as open to the stage pictures as ears are to Mozart’s intoxicating music.

It's never been an easy opera to follow, however.  Yes, I know many opera plots are convoluted but The Magic Flute has always been in a class of its own when it comes to confusing audiences.  The story sends a Prince, a Princess and Birdcatcher on a quest for knowledge, wisdom and enlightenment, through magical realms of dark, light, fire and ice.  But for much of the time it’s unclear who exactly is on the side of light and who is on the dark side. 

That’s where Director James Brining’s ON production really helps.  During the Overture a little girl observes her well-heeled parents demonstrating very loudly and publicly just how dysfunctional their relationship is.  The girl falls asleep and the opera is presented as a dream in which she is constantly on the periphery, the dream mirroring her confusion as to what to feel and think.  It’s a risky idea but it makes for an unexpectedly coherent vision of the opera.

The current revival is as opulent as ever, lavish sets, costumes, lighting and digital effects all contributing to the spectacle and to the opera’s emotional and intellectual impact.  The magic flute itself glows in various bright colours and the magic bells not only sound lovely but become a wonderful weapon, transforming threatening enemies into pirouetting dancers.  The three boys (beautifully acted) enter digitally on the back of a huge bird.  If all this sounds a bit too pretty, the three ladies are dressed in blood-stained nurses’ uniforms and wield what look like cut-down light sabres.

There is impressive singing too: Egor Zhuravskii (heroic and touching as Tamino); Anna Dennis (glorious in the Queen of the Night’s super-virtuoso music…apart from one missed note) and Msimelelo Mbali (a physically as well as vocally impressive Sarastro).  Emyr Wyn Jones is an ebullient, touchingly comic Papageno.  But everyone in this huge-cast production deserves praise, including the mightily impressive Chorus and all the children whose presence is such an important part of this Flute’s vision.

On the night I went the audience gave an especially loud cheer to conductor Christoph Koncz and ON’s Orchestra, as well they might.  Mozart’s music may be evergreen but it needs this kind of detailed, lithe and springy approach to make its glories shine.  This is a production where sound fuses with vision to create a magical, revelatory production, guaranteed to lift the spirits on a cold, dark wintry evening (or any time for that matter).

Claire Lees PAMINA, Egor Zhuravskii TAMINO, Anna Dennis QUEEN OF THE NIGHT, Msimelelo Mbali SARASTRO, Emyr Wyn Jones PAPAGENO, Pasquale Orchard PAPAGENA, Colin Judson MONOSTATOS, Andri Björn Róbertsson SPEAKER, Charlie Drummond FIRST LADY, Kathryn Sharpe SECOND LADY, Hazel Croft THIRD LADY, Satriya Krisna  FIRST ARMED MAN, Tom Smith FIRST PRIEST, Richard Mosley-Evans SECOND ARMED MAN, Paul Gibson SECOND PRIEST

The Chorus, Children and Orchestra of Opera North

Christoph Koncz CONDUCTOR, James Brining DIRECTOR, Colin Richmond SET & COSTUME DESIGNER, Chris Davey LIGHTING DESIGNER, Douglas O’Connell VIDEO DESIGNER, Tim Claydon CHOREOGRAPHER, Lauren Poulton ASSISTANT DIRECTOR / REVIVAL CHOREOGRAPHER

Further performances in February and March 2025 in Leeds, Newcastle, Salford, Nottingham and Hull