Mozart - The Royal Opera, Colin Davis - Die Zauberflöte / The Magic Flute (2008) {BuRay Audio Rip}

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Mozart - The Royal Opera, Colin Davis - Die Zauberflöte / The Magic Flute (2008) {BuRay Audio Rip}

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - The Royal Opera / Sir Colin Davis - Die Zauberflöte / The Magic Flute
Stereo FLAC @ 24Bit48kHz: 1,6 GB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info | Genre: Classical, Opera
Label/Cat#: Opus Arte, BBC # OA BD7002 D | Country/Year: Uk & Europe 2008

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Mozart - The Royal Opera, Colin Davis - Die Zauberflöte / The Magic Flute (2008) {BuRay Audio Rip}

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Mozart - The Royal Opera, Colin Davis - Die Zauberflöte / The Magic Flute (2008) {BuRay Audio Rip}

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It’s hard to find a version of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte that’s as well sung as this 2003 Covent Garden production. Led by the eminent Mozartian, Sir Colin Davis, orchestra and singers present a warm, often intense vision of the opera, not as the fairy tale it’s often taken for, but as a human drama of the passage from misguided beliefs to mature knowledge of self. Diana Damrau is the Queen of the Night for our time, with show-stopping bravura singing that tosses off the score’s terrifying high notes with almost casual abandon. Her acting and her fright outfit never leave you in doubt that she’s the evil presence here, even when she’s pretending to be a good mom concerned about her daughter, Pamina. Dorothea Röschmann is superb, floating pianissimo notes to die for and singing with a beautifully rounded soprano allied to a dramatic sense that make her Ach, ich fuhl's so moving. Will Hartman is a virile Tamino, a bit heavier of voice than most of the lyric tenors who take the role, but singing well. Like most Tamino’s, he’s upstaged by Papageno, the bird-catcher who’s his sidekick. Baritone Simon Keenlyside offers the best-sung Papageno one could hope to hear, and while he’s funny in many of his more physical scenes, he replaces the usual clownish buffoon with an earth-bound Everyman. The noble Sarastro, the lovers’ guide to self-realization, is well sung by Franz-Josef Selig, whose ample bass easily encompasses the low Fs that make most basses sound strained.

The smaller roles are done well, too. Ailish Tynan has a romp as Papagena; the evil Monostatos is done to vocal and acting perfection by Adrian Thompson, the Queen’s Three Ladies are well-matched and appropriately edgy, and the Temple Priests are convincingly sung and acted. This production of Die Zauberflöte is a dark one. Producer David McVicar and conductor Davis reject the relatively recent transformation of the opera into a Disney-like romp for kids. The comic element in the opera is there, but its philosophical underpinnings–humanity’s fitful progress to a higher plane – are paramount. There are still plenty of laughs with the fake dragon that pursues Tamino at the opera’s opening and Papageno’s funny business with a bird, among other chuckle-inducing scenes. But the production’s Stygian backgrounds make for an oppressive setting. When light enters, as in the pomp of Sarastro’s entry or the blazing yellow disc of the sun that conquers darkness, the opera’s meanings are crystal-clear. Most of the characters wear 18th Century outfits, to comic effect as Monostatos’ heavy makeup, lipsticked mouth, and elaborate wig. But there are occasional incongruities: Tamino’s smock, the Three Boys’ knit sweaters and short pants, and Papagana’s mangy fur coat, among others. They’re well intregrated into the staging so they don’t jar. Nor, aside from the occasional too-tight closeups, does the video direction. In the special features, Davis speaks of the opera’s tension between "lighthearted music and the seriousness of the story," and all elements of this production fuse those key aspects in a way that makes this Blu-ray disc a joy to hear and watch. –Dan Davis amazon

Covent Garden’s 2003 production of The Magic Flute, designed by John F. Macfarlane, directed by David McVicar, and conducted by Sir Colin Davis, is magnificent from a strictly musical standpoint. More than that, it’s vastly entertaining. The comedic elements of the story integrate far more comfortably than is often the case with Schikaneder’s high-minded (if vague) theme of a quest for enlightenment, particularly in the second act. The audience at this January 2003 performance laughs a great deal. Visually, the production is a feast, yet it doesn’t distract from the music, as does Julie Taymor’s current design in New York. The intention was to maintain an 18th-century feel but to play freely with that aesthetic: the costumes, for instance, are an imaginative mix of the Baroque, some sci-fi (The Three Ladies), with a little English Music Hall thrown in (Papageno wears a sweater vest with embroidered ducks and preposterous fowl-inspired headgear).

The cast is indeed superb, including both seasoned pros—Franz-Joseph Selig, Simon Keenlyside, and Thomas Allen (lavishly cast in the small role of the Speaker of the Temple)—and up-and-coming younger singers, most notably the remarkable Diana Damrau, who manages the vocal acrobatics of the Queen of the Night’s first aria while constantly on the move. Dorothea Röschmann is an appealing, very feminine Pamina: her second act “Ach ich fühls, es ist verschwunden,” one of Mozart’s finest, is exquisitely rendered. Her intended, Will Hartmann, has a voice that occasionally takes on a slightly leathery quality, but he’s an assertive and expressive leading man. Simon Keenlyside’s pleasing baritone is a given, but mostly he seems to be enjoying the opportunities for physical comedy that this production affords him. Keenlyside’s antics are taken up a notch with the arrival of a Papagena (Ailish Tynan) who is right out of The Benny Hill Show. Adrian Thompson’s foppish Monostatos is clearly not a villain to be taken too seriously and Selig’s plushly sung Sarastro provides a solid moral core to act II. The Three Ladies feel like extensions of the Queen’s will, as they should, and The Three Boys remind us that the English boy chorister tradition is alive and well.

Sir Colin Davis, associated with Mozart’s operas throughout his long career, leads with grace and drive, shaping the ensemble numbers effectively. The spoken dialogue isn’t treated as something to be rushed through; listening to the Queen of the Night’s speech to Pamina in the second act, you’d think you were at a West End theater. Chorus and orchestra perform as expected at the Royal Opera and the supernumeraries that are (intentionally) in view to manipulate the giant serpent at the beginning of the opera and accomplish other tasks throughout the evening do so with dramatic flair.

This HD DVD is Opus Arte’s third high-definition release, and the first opera. Swan Lake was covered in Fanfare 31:1 (pp. 27–29) and a second ballet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is reviewed elsewhere. As reported in the feature accompanying the Tchaikovsky review, The Royal Opera House recently purchased the Opus Arte label and, clearly, more high-def opera video is on the way. The video quality here is extraordinary, in terms of the richness of the color palette and detail—during the overture, the camera zooms in on a first violinist’s part and you can make out every note and dynamic marking. The two-channel sound, in a “lossless” format known as Dolby TrueHD, is excellent—robust and full, with good stereo spread and depth. We hear warmly textured string sound of the sort you get with SACD or DVD-Audio sources. Voices are beautifully characterized. I’m disappointed that I can’t report on the multichannel option as my player, an LG BH100, automatically down-converted the 5.1 version to stereo. This was not the case for the Opus Arte Swan Lake, for which the high-resolution audio format was DTS HD—multichannel worked just fine on that disc.

I think I’ve got my first 2008 Want List selection, and there are nine months until that copy deadline.

FANFARE: Andrew Quint Reviewing DVD version arkivmusic