‘Die Zauberflöte’ Review: The Met Humanizes Mozart’s Fantasy

Simon McBurney’s production of “The Magic Flute” at the Metropolitan Opera is an unusually nuanced yet still playful rendition of the fairy tale.

By Heidi Waleson

May 22, 2023 6:51 pm ET

Lawrence Brownlee and Erin Morley

 PHOTO: KAREN ALMOND / MET OPERA

New York

Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte” (“The Magic Flute”) is often staged as a fun fairy tale, playing to its magical and ritual elements; the Metropolitan Opera’s colorful Julie Taymor production is a prime example. Director Simon McBurney’s interpretation, which had its Met premiere on Friday, takes a different approach. Devised in collaboration with Complicité, Mr. McBurney’s London-based theater company, the production—first presented in Amsterdam in 2012—strips away the fantasy while retaining a sense of playfulness. It creates an onstage world that includes the audience by inviting it behind the scenes and offers a nuanced, human perspective on characters who can often come across as one-dimensional. 

There’s a lot going on, and Mr. McBurney makes us work and pay attention to sort out what is happening. The house lights are still up when the overture begins; there’s almost no color in the sets and costumes. The orchestra pit is raised so that the musicians are visible and involved in the action, while a walkway between the pit and the audience allows characters to enter from the house. We see the theater effects as they are being made: On one side of the proscenium, Blake Habermann, a visual artist, chalks and erases simple figures and words that are projected on scrims; on the other, Ruth Sullivan, a Foley artist, creates amplified sound effects such as rain, thunder and clinking bottles. Twelve black-clad actors supplement the singing cast. 

All this activity is purposeful: It allows the audience to share the disorientation of Tamino, Pamina and Papageno as they wander through a strange environment, fearful and not knowing whom to trust. The central element of Michael Levine’s industrial set is a large platform that hangs by four wires from girders. It moves up and down, tilts, and swings precariously, forcing the performers, who may be on it or under it, to fight for balance amid almost perpetual instability and looming threat. Jean Kalman’s lighting emphasizes shadows while Nicky Gillibrand’s monochromatic costumes, such as the severe business suits for Sarastro and his followers, provide no reassurance. 

Thomas Oliemans (center)

 PHOTO: KAREN ALMOND / MET OPERA

The production visually unifies the disparate scenes of this strange journey; still, the overall effect is theatrical and spirited rather than grim. Actors shake pieces of paper to represent Papageno’s birds; flutist Seth Morris climbs out of the orchestra to play Tamino’s solo tune, making animals dance via Mr. Habermann’s live drawings and Finn Ross’s projections. Brief comic bits are tossed off: The fleeing Pamina and Papageno, relieved at being rescued from Monostatos by the glockenspiel solo, try frantically to shush the trumpet player who stands up to play Sarastro’s entrance music. Amid such intimate, homemade moments, a coup de théâtre has more force: For the trial by water, Tamino and Pamina are suddenly suspended, swimming, in midair. 

Nathalie Stutzmann’s crisp, authoritative conducting built a steady dramatic arc while giving the excellent singers expressive freedom to create personalities. Lawrence Brownlee’s tenor sounded slightly harsh in Tamino’s rhapsodic aria about Pamina’s portrait, but his forceful delivery ably demonstrated the character’s confusion and resolve. In his most striking moment, he stood before Sarastro’s temple (a giant projection of a row of books) with the flute in one hand and a gun in the other, asking in despair if Pamina “has been sacrificed already.” Erin Morley’s exquisitely pure soprano bloomed in Pamina’s arias and ensembles. Papageno, the comedian, invariably has the most activity of the principals, and Thomas Oliemans, dressed in tattered outdoor gear and toting a stepladder, carried it all off with gusto, aided by a warm, appealing baritone. He also wandered into the audience in search of Papagena, followed by Mr. Habermann’s video camera. 

Kathryn Lewek and Ms. Morley

PHOTO: KAREN ALMOND / MET OPERA

The opera’s two principal antagonists had more depth than usual in this staging. Kathryn Lewek’s Queen of the Night was old and weak—hobbling with a cane or slumped in a wheelchair—but she deployed her coloratura as if it were her only remaining weapon, while bass Stephen Milling, an imposing presence in shoulder-length silver wig, made a complex, not very comforting Sarastro. Ashley Emersonwas a lusty Papagena; Brenton Ryan a conniving Monostatos, rather like the office sneak. Alexandria Shiner, Olivia Voteand Tamara Mumford played the Three Ladies as enthusiastic soldiers/seducers; Harold Wilson was an officious Speaker; Richard Bernstein and Errin Duane Brooks doubled effectively as the Priests and the Armed Men. The Three Boys—Deven Agge, Julian Knopf and Luka Zylik—came across as a weird combination of ancient and unborn. The Met Chorus was impressive as Sarastro’s devoted entourage. 

Everything works out in the end, and the welcoming ethos of the production is pervasive. For the finale, Sarastro and the Queen, atypically, were reconciled, and the whole cast crowded the stage apron, as if to join the orchestra and the audience. The Metropolitan is an enormous theater, and the yawning expanse of the pit usually feels like a barrier moat. On Friday, the house felt intimate, as though we were part of the show, and the new, better world that is supposedly born at the end. 

Ms. Waleson writes on opera for the Journal and is the author of “Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of the New York City Opera and the Future of Opera in America” (Metropolitan).