Mozart’s much loved and much performed final opera, The Magic Flute, which premiered in September 1791 just over two months before his death, was always intended for popular consumption – a fairy-tale of sorts championing the forces of good over evil, reason over revenge and the just rewards of perseverance.
It has made a welcome return to Adelaide in a new State Opera of South Australia production that, for the first time, presents a collaboration between an Australian company and Opera Hong Kong, the Beijing Music Festival and China National Opera House.
It also shows the direction in which newly appointed Artistic Director Dane Lam is taking, reflected in the company’s statement of intent of it being “ambitious, international and deeply human.”
This fresh, mad and magical aiming production of The Magic Flute clearly draws upon the far-reaching connections Lam has forged with Australians and internationals on our shores and abroad, as well as from serving as Music and Artistic Director of the Hawai’i Symphony Orchestra and Principal Conductor of the Xi’an Symphony Orchestra.
The work’s initial plot concerns Prince Tamino being tasked with rescuing Princess Pamina from the perceived evil sorcerer Sarastro. But the story evolves to reveal Sarastro as a figure of wisdom and his once-upon-a-time wife, the Queen of the Night, as the real evildoer. In the end, love prevails, rivals arrive at peace and all are enlightened by the journey.
Often referred to as a rescue opera, it was starling-voiced Australian-Mauritian soprano Stacey Alleaume, however, who did the rescuing at opening night, stepping in at short notice for American soprano Sofia Troncoso who took ill. And what a radiant performance she gave!
As Pamina, Alleaume appeared well-briefed and completely snug in Chinese director Shuang Zou’s promising concept that seemed to blow apart Tamino’s sense of reality after a break up with Pamina in the bowels of a busy Hong Kong metro station. The assumption was that they had already met, stoking both a reason and an inspired stepping stone for Tamino’s phantasmagorical experience to come.
The problem was – some exceptionally entertaining aspects aside, including a trio of sedulous air stewardesses who stepped into Tamino’s dream state from an airline advertisement on the metro station wall as the Queen’s three Ladies – the power and magic of Mozart’s work felt hampered by chinks in Dan Potra’s stage design, clumsy entrances and exits from inapt wing curtains and a number of hiccups in stage and pit timing.
It also didn’t help that Her Majesty’s Theatre’s air-conditioning equipment was audible during the singspiel’s spoken dialogue as well as the clump of footsteps on the hollow-sounding raked stage. Together with occasional backstage noises and abrupt sound modulations as singers moved forward stage from centre or rear, the ineffable spell of theatrical escapism seemed compromised.
But Zou’s work never skimped on imaginative ideas and whimsical humour that transformed the quotidian into something fantastical. Subtlety rarely entered into the realm.
The overture became the canvas for videographer Marco Devetak’s absorbing animated story of an Asian-faced adolescent boy getting up to become Mozart and preparing for a day of busking at the metro. Projections of incoming trains on a background curtain, though wobbly, facilitated entrances and exits for a platform of commuters and improbable travels while a moving train image transformed into the serpent Tamino encountered and Papageno the birdcatcher falsely claimed he slayed.
A central revolve that turned and tilted on the raked stage provided wonderful scope for key moments, none more impressive than the incorporation of a cloud on which Sarastro sat at the start of Act 2 as the subterranean metro columns turned like blades of a windmill. Glen D’Haenens’ lighting, too, had its finest moment.
Adding to the separation of realms, characters in Tamino’s dream state illuminated the stage in a creative concoction of fanciful costumes while contemporary attire described his reality. In Zou’s interpretation, amongst the haze of the constant squeeze and movement of life, personal journeys and strange encounters exist with a sense of ubiquity.
Wrapped up in Mozart’s magnificently melodic music of depth and beauty, it wasn’t, however, aces all round on opening night. Late replacement Alleaume was the standout, her Pamina doe-eyed and resilient. Alleaume’s heartbreaking rendering of Pamina’s Act 2 aria, Ach, ich fühl’s, es ist verschwunden (Oh, I feel it, it is gone), in which she believes her beloved has abandoned her, crowned the night in a vocal highlight.
With a muscular tenor and stage athleticism, Nicholas Jones made a convincingly ardent Tamino. In white top hat and sunrise-toned long coat, Teddy Tahu Rhodes employed his cavernous bass with kindly authority. Soprano Danielle Bavli had the notes but lacked the ferocity of the Queen of the Night’s rage in the popularly sung and recorded aria, Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen (Hell’s vengeance boils in my heart).
As the avian-attired Papageno, David Greco relished the moment in portraying the story’s most endearing character. Assigned with some of the most memorably enchanting music, Greco charmed, even when timing faltered and embellishments were dicey. Sweet-voiced Jessica Dean made an impactful surprise as Papagena and Mark Oates circled proceedings in suitably creepy form as Monostatos.
The three air stewardesses – Helena Dix, Catriona Barr and Fiona McArdle – spiced the night splendidly, notably Dix who, as luxury casting as the First Lady, provided gorgeous vocal ornamentation and irresistible humour (and unselfishly lending a bosom to the incapacitated Tamino).
And the three guiding spirits – youngsters Phillip Cheng, Ethan Zhang and Celine Yuan – delighted from the moment they sang as infants in a three-seater stroller, through life’s stages and until hunched old men.
In the pit the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra played commendably. Lam conducted with both sensitivity and fluidity, engaging varying tempi to give strong momentum. For my ear, however, the hesitation to roar a 747, so to speak, through the auditorium in the tension-building scenes that demand orchestral forte-fortissimo, seemed amiss.
Indeed, there are issues that could do with being addressed but resoundingly entertaining it is so do try to head in or fly in for the journey.
The Magic Flute
Her Majesty’s Theatre, 58 Grote Street, Adelaide
Performance: Thursday 28 August 2025
Season continues to 6 September 2025
Information and Bookings: www.stateopera.com.au
Images: State Opera South Australia presents The Magic Flute – photos by Andrew Beveridge
Review: Paul Selar