Austria

Stop the circus! In 2018 Lydia Steier caused veritable opposition with her production of Mozart’s “Magic Flute” at the Salzburg Festival, not least thanks to an overloaded circus aesthetic. This was only four years ago – and yet it seems like from another world, before war, before a pandemic. Festival director Markus Hinterhäuser has now given Steier the chance to revise her direction. And since Saturday evening it has been clear: it was worth it.

Steier manages to condense her sometimes exuberant work from 2018, in which she focuses, omits show effects and is therefore more concise overall. The move from the Great Festival Hall to the stage of the much smaller House for Mozart played a major part in this – and nomen est omen it works extremely well.

In doing so, Steier retained her basic concept of dressing the legendary disparate libretto of the Mozart/Schikaneder opera in a framework story. The events are told by the grandfather (Roland Koch) of an upper-class family to his three grandchildren as a bedtime story. This has the pleasant side effect that he, as the narrator, takes over the majority of the speaking passages – for which the audience can only be grateful, given the singers who often speak at the level of a nativity scene.

The entire “Magic Flute” world thus originates in the childish fantasy of the two-level bourgeois villa, which equates its own hysterical mother with the Queen of the Night, makes Tamino appear as a tin soldier and lets the butcher’s son become Papageno. The boys’ cuddly toys will also be given an oversized appearance over the course of the story.

This concept is just as coherent as it smooths out the complexity of The Magic Flute. Stringency at the price of depth. It gives the work that stringent arc that it doesn’t actually have on its own, and over long passages makes it what Mozart’s penultimate stage work is traditionally used for by parents: a children’s opera that can be used to hook young musicians.

And yet Steier, who was born in the USA in 1978 and now lives in Europe, manages better this time in the Director’s Cut not to let the philosophical questions of the work fall completely under the table. The misogynist image of women in the opera is addressed as well as the belligerence inherent in the men’s league. And for the somewhat heteronormative “Nothing nobler than woman and man. Man and woman, and woman and man, reach out to the deity” there is even a little lesbian kiss.

Nevertheless, this Salzburg “Magic Flute” does not become a highly philosophical, transcendent one, it remains one that emphasizes folk theater and does not shy away from rough gags. The circus elements, which still overloaded the work in 2018, have given way, there are effects and a sophisticated revolving stage system (stage design once more Katharina Schlipf), but no more spectacle.

Shooting star Joana Mallwitz, conductor of the Philharmoniker, is not at all averse to the spectacle. It begins almost provocatively slowly – but the suggestion of a long evening is misleading. The Maestra, born in 1986, goes at crazy tempos, but never as an end in itself. Rarely does the podium act so completely in coordination and reflection of what is happening on stage, the German always has the stage in view and puts the music at its service.

The question of the cast, on the other hand, is not unanimously positive. Regula Mühlemann is a beautiful-sounding, finely intonated Pamina, Michael Nagl is a charming, creamy Papageno and the fact that Tareq Nazmi has moved up from the supporting role to the bass-strong Sarastro compared to 2018 is also on the plus side.

The other group is led by the young Swiss Mauro Peter as Tamino, who unfortunately does not have the height for the game when he returns, which is forced and shaky. And Brenda Rae, as Queen of the Night, is fortunate that, unlike her predecessor in 2018, she does not have to wear a squirrel helmet, but this does not help her to elegantly master the breakneck game. The three Vienna Boys’ Choir, on the other hand, perform their clearly upgraded parts of the three boys confidently – without sniffing the air of the circus.

(SERVICE: “The Magic Flute”, new production at the Salzburg Festival, House for Mozart; musical direction of the Vienna Philharmonic: Joana Mallwitz, director: Lydia Steier, stage: Katharina Schlipf, costumes: Ursula Kudrna, lighting: Olaf Freese. With: Tareq Nazmi – Sarastro, Mauro Peter – Tamino, Brenda Rae/Jasmin Delfs – Queen of the Night, Regula Mühlemann – Pamina, Ilse Eerens – First Lady, Sophie Rennert – Second Lady, Noa Beinart – Third Lady, Michael Nagl – Papageno, Maria Nazarova – Papagena, Peter Tantsits – Monostatos, Henning von Schulman – Speaker/First Priest/Second Man in Armor, Simon Bode – Second Priest/First Man in Armor, Roland Koch – Grandfather, Vienna Boys’ Choir – Three Boys). Further performances on August 3, 6, 10, 17, 20, 24 and 27. salzburgerfestspiele.at)