The Magic Flute - W.A. Mozart
Vancouver Opera
January 27, 30 - 2007
February 1, 3, 6, 8 - 2007
Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Vancouver BC
Director - Robert McQueen
Conductor - Derrick Inouye
reviewed on Tuesday, January 30
Why would Vancouver Opera take a perfectly good Mozart opera and spend it's largest single event budget to try to give it a First Nations twist?
Why would Vancouver Opera consult with First Nations artists to create costumes and dances and set designs reflective of First Nations art and culture, when the Magic Flute was a 1791 production set in a faraway land, filled with Mozart's newly learned knowledge of Free Masonry and Masonic rituals?
The real question is not simply "why not?" but rather "Why hasn't something like this been done before?"
All the pre-event buzz of a First Nations Magic Flute was worth it. All the endless rounds of community and cultural consultations working with the First Peoples’ Heritage, Language and Culture Council, was thorough on every level. All the Where Cultures Meet public presentation/forum events at the Vancouver Public Library and the Chan Centre peaked people's interest and challenged their notions of opera and culture. I reviewed the November 8th event Can Cultures Merge?
James Wright, general director for Vancouver Opera, has been making the company more representative and responsible for the community, history and culture of Vancouver. In 2005, "Naomi's Road" debuted as a 45 minute opera for schools. It was based on the children's novel version of Joy Kogawa's award winning novel "Obasan" which told the story of the internment of Japanese-Canadians during WW2. This was only the 2nd original commission in the Vancouver Opera's history, following The Architect (1994).
Last fall the Vancouver Opera's Touring Ensemble revealed their 45 minute version of Mozart's Magic Flute. The normally 3 hour long opera underwent a radical adaptation to become a First Nations story about a young man who must prove his worthiness to his father, Sarastro, by finding the "box of shadows" from T'sonokwa, the Wild Woman of the Woods. Along the way he meets bird catcher Papageno, and the beautiful Pamina who are also on their own quests to find love and family. A complex Mozart opera became a delightful opera about the value of family and community. I loved it immediately when I saw it performed at the Vancouver Academy of Music in December.
And now the full-length version embraces First Nations culture, while staying true to original storylines. A long creative process saw collaboration and mentorship between First Nations cultural consultants and artists with the opera company. Similarties were found in Mozart's opera between the Masonic spiritual rituals and First Nations mythology and spiritual values. An opera representatively set on the Pacific Coast with a multicultural cast has emerged from the swirling mists. Vancouver Opera opened a box of possibilities and and now give mainstream culture a taste of what has been happening on the Vancouver cultural arts scene for years on a much smaller and edgier scale. This is a rich and worthy project and deserves to be seen.
Before the opera began on Tuesday night, Chief Leonard George of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation (Burrard Band of the Squamish Nation) came out to welcome the audience to traditional Salish/Squamish lands, and spoke about the collaboration between Vancouver Opera and First Nations peoples in creating this production of Magic Flute. He stated that it was wonderful that the high culture of of First Nations is now recognized as equal with the high culture European opera. The son of the late Chief Dan George, he is also an actor and film consultant as well as a lecturer, and First Nations traditional singer and dancer. Beating on a hand drum, Chief Leonard George sang a song that helped prepare the audience for the special cultural journey for the evening.
The overture opens with a film projected onto the vast scrim of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Images of urban street scenes of buildings, alleys and cars give way to forest trees and ocean lapped rocky shores. This high tech staging device helps to transport the audience from the traffic hassles of parking the car on the same night as a Vancouver Canucks hockey game, into the anticipated world of the First Nations Mozart opera. And maybe this also explains why the main characters Tamino and Pamina are wearing contemporary style clothes, as they too are transported from the contemporary into this brave new, yet ancient world. There are 70 amazing individually designed costumes by John Powell and Christine Reimer, which provide lots of "ohh factor" for this production.
In the original Magic Flute production, Tamino is an Italian prince, attacked by a sea serpent, before being cast up on the shores of Egypt (spiritual birthplace of Masonry). Now he is a First Nations man of noble heritage, who is attacked by a double headed First Nations serpent, and landed on the rocky coastline of the Coast Salish forest. Phillipe Castagner is a splendid Tamino, full of self-determined bearing and strength of will and song.
The prone Tamino is discovered by Three Ladies, attendants of the Queen of the Night who killed the sea serpent to save him. The Third Lady is played by mezzo-soprano Marion Newman of Kwakwaka'wakw/Coast Salish heritage. The ladies are dressed in traditionally inspired First Nations styled costumes that contrast with the urban leather pants worn by Tamion. The ladies also have blue skin and bald heads. It is apparent that Tamino's journey is truly to a different land.
Papegano is dressed in the wonderful blue and black raven costume that you see on billboards and ads around Vancouver. Raven is perfect for Papegano, as Raven is the classic "trickster" figure in First Nations culture. Papageno is the first character that Tamino meets, and promptly becomes his sidekick and travel companion for adventure. Played by Etienne Dupuis, he brings much comic relief to the opera, stealing many scenes, long before the famouse Papageno/Papagena duet.
The Queen of the Night is played by Korean soprano Hwang Sin Nyung. She is a ravishingly thrilling Queen of the Night hitting the famous high F note with ease. Her head is bald and her costume looks like it was picked out of a Jack Shadboldt painting - a butterfly on acid, striking with blacks, blues and silver. Her wings are used to great effect as she wraps herself in them or they simply hang or flow, dependent on her movement.
Instead of visiting a sacred Masonic temple, Tamino finds himself at a cathedral like forest which itself is sacred in First Nations culture. He is met by "The Speaker" played by baritone Gene Wu, the Chinese-Canadian last seen in Vancouver as Naomi's father in Naomi's Road. Wu is dressed completely in green, with large leaves evocative of being a tree himself. His baritone is lyrical as he challenges Tamino to see past the deception and lies of the Queen of the Night, and to understand Sarastro as a benevolent and wise man.
Sarastro, is played by African-American Kevin Short, as a dignified chieftain. His bass-baritone is strong, and provides a strong anchor against the other voices, especially with the male chorus or the mixed chorus, and the finale with the Queen of the Night. His costume includes a copper shield breast plate - an artifact of high honour in West Coast First Nations culture. From high priest to wise chieftain, this role easily fits in with the transformation, as he is surrounded by his tribal council - each dressed in costume representative of the 12 different West Coast First Nations.
Michel Corbiel is the menacing Monostatos who is threatening Pamina when we first meet them both. He is dressed as a rat with ears and a tail, but with knickers remnescient of 18th C. Europe, as are his followers. I guess this is the political statement about European colonialism in North America.
Director Robert McQueen has indeed attempted to embrace the almost-impossible, balancing political correctness with First Nations protocol, European opera traditionalism with new creative vision. He wisely sticks to the central universal themes of love, and heroic myth. We met him during the intermission after he had just been congratulated by Lt. Governor Iona Campagnolo. McQueen was still very actively engaged in tweaking with the production, as there were still projection problems. But he was amazingly optimistic and certainly happy with the production.
Mozart's Magic Flute score is filled with hummable songs and famous arias, and easily stands on its own. Vancouver born conductor Derrick Inouye writes in the program:
"Great theatrical and musical works
have always been re-invented and re-imagined by adventurous directors
and composers, setting Rigoletto for example in Chicago in the 1930's, or Romeo and Juliet as West Side Story.
While not all these creative offshoots are successful, some of the most
inventive re-interpretations can not only spark our imagination but
also bring a new richness to our perception of a familiar work and
evoke the underlying truths of human experience and emotion that can
encompass such an evolution of the original intent."
And this Magic Flute production indeed sparks our imaginations. What if Ballet BC were to do something similar such as set Swan Lake in First Nations mythology? What if Vancouver Opera and other mainstream arts organizations commissioned new original works with BC's diverse heritage and culture in mind? Will we see Naomi's Road blossom into a full scale opera? Will we see First Nations stories emerge into the mainstream? Will we see a Chinese Canadian opera about building the railroad and paying the head tax? The possibilities are infinite and only defined by the limits of our imagination.
Vancouver Opera's full scale Magic Flute runs until Feb 8th.
But if you can... also check out the 45 minute version that was created for school children. While the 3 hour version is amazing with brilliant moments, there are also scenes that drag a bit. The 45 minute version sustains "the magic" from start to finish. Melody Mercredi who plays the Queen of the Night understudy for the Queen Elizabeth performances, is a frightening wonderful T'sonokwa/Queen of the Night. I talked briefly with her in December, and the Metis native told me that while growing up, she heard many stories about T'sonokwa, so she felt she could really relate to the First Nations retelling of the opera.
Feb 9, West Vancouver Memorial Library
April 7 & 8, Firehall Arts Centre
Check out this other links and reviews
Innovative Magic Flute justifies the buzz
www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/arts/
NationTalk - Vancouver Opera Presents A New Production of W.A. Mozart
www.nationtalk.ca
Welcome to the Vancouver Courier
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globeandmail.com: Mozart, with a first nation touch
www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/
