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Sam and Friends BookColoring Mozart's World With Puppets and Gewgaws
October 11, 2004
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
Julie Taymor's highly anticipated new production of "Die
Zauberflöte" ("The Magic Flute") for the Metropolitan Opera
opened to a packed house on Friday night. You can bet that
word will quickly spread beyond the world of opera about
the elaborate stage effects and exotic imagery that Ms.
Taymor, the popular director, costume designer, mask-maker
and puppeteer, has brought to Mozart's mystical fairy tale.
The monster that pursues the young prince Tamino in the
opening scene is a slinky, stage-spanning kite-puppet
propped up with sticks by a crew of scampering, half-hidden
manipulators. When the hearty bird-catcher Papageno sings
his introductory song, a flock of bizarre puppet-birds dip
and dive around him. The enormous rotating set designed by
Ms. Taymor's colleague George Tsypin is quite a sight: a
crystal-like kaleidoscope of walls and stairs and geometric
shapes.
Yet Ms. Taymor's production is so packed with stage tricks,
so peopled with puppets, kite-flyers, dancers and extras of
sundry description, that the exceptionally fine musical
performance given by the conductor James Levine and a
strong cast was overwhelmed. Recruiting Ms. Taymor, the
director of "The Lion King," to oversee a new staging of
this magical opera had seemed a good idea. But though the
audience gave her a frenzied ovation, I found her
production a perplexing disappointment.
Mozart and his librettist, Emanuel Schikaneder, discreetly
encoded their opera with the rituals and secular humanist
philosophy of Freemasonry. Plumbing the work for its
metaphysical elements and setting it in an exotic locale
are time-honored directorial approaches. Ms. Taymor's
production, though, is a jumble of intentions, styles and
symbols (life as a chess match between good and evil,
between hard-won wisdom and natural instinct).
Ms. Taymor makes Mozart's fairy-tale characters seem
archetypes rather than individuals. For example, the Three
Ladies (Emily Pulley, Jossie Pérez, Wendy White) who serve
the mysterious Queen of the Night wear dark flowing gowns
and blackface, and have large, eerie, detachable silver
masks atop their heads. But the creepy images they convey
as they wield the masks in their spindly fingers are at
odds with the jaunty, chattering music they sing. The
ladies should be a little spooky, true, but also silly,
especially when they engage in catty competition over the
handsome Tamino.
Ms. Taymor's stage imagery often undercuts the musical
impact of a scene, for example when two armed men guarding
the entrance to Sarastro's Temple of Wisdom sing a stern
duet, evocative of grim and sturdy Baroque counterpoint.
Here the men were dwarfed by huge puppet versions of
themselves, towering figures with flaming faces and ominous
moving arms. The singers (Garrett Sorenson and Morris
Robinson) were rendered so irrelevant that they might as
well have been performing from the orchestra pit.
I am sure that Ms. Taymor can cite specific reference
points from Eastern and Western theater traditions for
every aspect of every costume in her production. But to me
they were a mishmash of colors, concepts and designs.
Tamino, sung by the ardent lyric tenor Matthew Polenzani,
wore Kabuki-like whiteface. With jet-black hair pulled back
in a ponytail and a multi-caped costume, he looked like a
Calaf from a tacky production of Puccini's "Turandot." And
Pamina, sung by the soprano Dorothea Röschmann with
uncommon emotional intensity yet within the bounds of
elegant Mozartean style, wore a dress that would have
suited Strauss's perky Zerbinetta, though Smetana's
Bartered Bride in a strangely colored shmatte also came to
mind.
Ms. Taymor, who spent formative years studying in
Indonesia, favors highly stylized, dancelike gestures. But
in this production her choreographic approach impeded the
acting of several singers, including, unfortunately, Mr.
Polenzani. Though he sang beautifully, with sweet tone,
lovely phrasing and clarion top notes, he often looked
stiff and uncomfortable. He has a boy-next-door quality
that other directors at the Met have used to advantage, and
some of that wholesomeness would have been perfect for
Tamino. When he first sees Pamina, shouldn't Tamino melt at
the sight of her, no longer the questing prince but a
smitten young man? As directed here Mr. Polenzani looked
distracted, as if trying to remember and execute a
predetermined pattern of stylized poses.
The production boasts a natural charmer in the strapping
young Russian baritone Rodion Pogossov as Papageno. With
his goofy grin, robust voice and physical nimbleness, Mr.
Pogossov was utterly endearing. So why couldn't Ms. Taymor
just trust him to sing "Ein Mädchen Oder Weibchen,"
Papageno's wistfully upbeat song? During this scene
Papageno, who is clearly meant to be alone on stage, plays
his magic bells and fantasizes about finding himself a
girlfriend or wife. But as Mr. Pogossov sang, he was
encircled by a flock of huge, prancing dancers on stilts
dressed as exotic, long-beaked bird-women, who pecked,
tickled and teased him. Instead of pondering Papageno's
romantic dilemma, you were invited to marvel at the
creatures Ms. Taymor has invented.
The moments when music came first, when the singers walked
close to the edge of the stage and simply sang, were few,
and even some of these were ruined by the necessities of
Ms. Taymor's staging. When Sarastro, the formidable Korean
bass Kwangchul Youn in his Met debut, sang his poignant
aria of reassurance to the confused Pamina, you could hear
the rumbling of the rotating set behind a curtain as the
next elaborate scene was put in place.
This is all the more frustrating because the musical
performance was mostly excellent and might have been
extraordinary. Mr. Levine drew supple and radiant playing
from the Met orchestra. Somber passages had breadth and
dignity; comic bits were frothy and articulate. In her Met
debut the Slovak soprano L'ubica Vargicova dispatched the
Queen of the Night's devilish coloratura with fearless
attack, bright tone and impressive accuracy. She looked a
sight in her costume, though, like some moth queen with
multiple wings manipulated by a roster of assistants.
My feelings notwithstanding, the Met probably has a huge
hit on its hands. There were rapturous ah's from the
audience with every new stage effect, as when the boys
singing the three spirits (Aiden Bowman, Jason Goldberg and
Lev Pakman), who looked like albino child-gurus with fluffy
white hair and Methuselah beards, flew over the stage on a
gliding platform suspended from the wings of a giant dove.
At least parents who are tired of taking their children
again and again to "The Lion King" have a new Julie Taymor
entertainment in town. And Mozart's score beats Elton
John's with a stick.
October 11, 2004
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
Julie Taymor's highly anticipated new production of "Die
Zauberflöte" ("The Magic Flute") for the Metropolitan Opera
opened to a packed house on Friday night. You can bet that
word will quickly spread beyond the world of opera about
the elaborate stage effects and exotic imagery that Ms.
Taymor, the popular director, costume designer, mask-maker
and puppeteer, has brought to Mozart's mystical fairy tale.
The monster that pursues the young prince Tamino in the
opening scene is a slinky, stage-spanning kite-puppet
propped up with sticks by a crew of scampering, half-hidden
manipulators. When the hearty bird-catcher Papageno sings
his introductory song, a flock of bizarre puppet-birds dip
and dive around him. The enormous rotating set designed by
Ms. Taymor's colleague George Tsypin is quite a sight: a
crystal-like kaleidoscope of walls and stairs and geometric
shapes.
Yet Ms. Taymor's production is so packed with stage tricks,
so peopled with puppets, kite-flyers, dancers and extras of
sundry description, that the exceptionally fine musical
performance given by the conductor James Levine and a
strong cast was overwhelmed. Recruiting Ms. Taymor, the
director of "The Lion King," to oversee a new staging of
this magical opera had seemed a good idea. But though the
audience gave her a frenzied ovation, I found her
production a perplexing disappointment.
Mozart and his librettist, Emanuel Schikaneder, discreetly
encoded their opera with the rituals and secular humanist
philosophy of Freemasonry. Plumbing the work for its
metaphysical elements and setting it in an exotic locale
are time-honored directorial approaches. Ms. Taymor's
production, though, is a jumble of intentions, styles and
symbols (life as a chess match between good and evil,
between hard-won wisdom and natural instinct).
Ms. Taymor makes Mozart's fairy-tale characters seem
archetypes rather than individuals. For example, the Three
Ladies (Emily Pulley, Jossie Pérez, Wendy White) who serve
the mysterious Queen of the Night wear dark flowing gowns
and blackface, and have large, eerie, detachable silver
masks atop their heads. But the creepy images they convey
as they wield the masks in their spindly fingers are at
odds with the jaunty, chattering music they sing. The
ladies should be a little spooky, true, but also silly,
especially when they engage in catty competition over the
handsome Tamino.
Ms. Taymor's stage imagery often undercuts the musical
impact of a scene, for example when two armed men guarding
the entrance to Sarastro's Temple of Wisdom sing a stern
duet, evocative of grim and sturdy Baroque counterpoint.
Here the men were dwarfed by huge puppet versions of
themselves, towering figures with flaming faces and ominous
moving arms. The singers (Garrett Sorenson and Morris
Robinson) were rendered so irrelevant that they might as
well have been performing from the orchestra pit.
I am sure that Ms. Taymor can cite specific reference
points from Eastern and Western theater traditions for
every aspect of every costume in her production. But to me
they were a mishmash of colors, concepts and designs.
Tamino, sung by the ardent lyric tenor Matthew Polenzani,
wore Kabuki-like whiteface. With jet-black hair pulled back
in a ponytail and a multi-caped costume, he looked like a
Calaf from a tacky production of Puccini's "Turandot." And
Pamina, sung by the soprano Dorothea Röschmann with
uncommon emotional intensity yet within the bounds of
elegant Mozartean style, wore a dress that would have
suited Strauss's perky Zerbinetta, though Smetana's
Bartered Bride in a strangely colored shmatte also came to
mind.
Ms. Taymor, who spent formative years studying in
Indonesia, favors highly stylized, dancelike gestures. But
in this production her choreographic approach impeded the
acting of several singers, including, unfortunately, Mr.
Polenzani. Though he sang beautifully, with sweet tone,
lovely phrasing and clarion top notes, he often looked
stiff and uncomfortable. He has a boy-next-door quality
that other directors at the Met have used to advantage, and
some of that wholesomeness would have been perfect for
Tamino. When he first sees Pamina, shouldn't Tamino melt at
the sight of her, no longer the questing prince but a
smitten young man? As directed here Mr. Polenzani looked
distracted, as if trying to remember and execute a
predetermined pattern of stylized poses.
The production boasts a natural charmer in the strapping
young Russian baritone Rodion Pogossov as Papageno. With
his goofy grin, robust voice and physical nimbleness, Mr.
Pogossov was utterly endearing. So why couldn't Ms. Taymor
just trust him to sing "Ein Mädchen Oder Weibchen,"
Papageno's wistfully upbeat song? During this scene
Papageno, who is clearly meant to be alone on stage, plays
his magic bells and fantasizes about finding himself a
girlfriend or wife. But as Mr. Pogossov sang, he was
encircled by a flock of huge, prancing dancers on stilts
dressed as exotic, long-beaked bird-women, who pecked,
tickled and teased him. Instead of pondering Papageno's
romantic dilemma, you were invited to marvel at the
creatures Ms. Taymor has invented.
The moments when music came first, when the singers walked
close to the edge of the stage and simply sang, were few,
and even some of these were ruined by the necessities of
Ms. Taymor's staging. When Sarastro, the formidable Korean
bass Kwangchul Youn in his Met debut, sang his poignant
aria of reassurance to the confused Pamina, you could hear
the rumbling of the rotating set behind a curtain as the
next elaborate scene was put in place.
This is all the more frustrating because the musical
performance was mostly excellent and might have been
extraordinary. Mr. Levine drew supple and radiant playing
from the Met orchestra. Somber passages had breadth and
dignity; comic bits were frothy and articulate. In her Met
debut the Slovak soprano L'ubica Vargicova dispatched the
Queen of the Night's devilish coloratura with fearless
attack, bright tone and impressive accuracy. She looked a
sight in her costume, though, like some moth queen with
multiple wings manipulated by a roster of assistants.
My feelings notwithstanding, the Met probably has a huge
hit on its hands. There were rapturous ah's from the
audience with every new stage effect, as when the boys
singing the three spirits (Aiden Bowman, Jason Goldberg and
Lev Pakman), who looked like albino child-gurus with fluffy
white hair and Methuselah beards, flew over the stage on a
gliding platform suspended from the wings of a giant dove.
At least parents who are tired of taking their children
again and again to "The Lion King" have a new Julie Taymor
entertainment in town. And Mozart's score beats Elton
John's with a stick.