At the Opera: Arizona Opera’s ‘Magic Flute’ a melodic, visual feast

The opera “Magic Flute” is rather like an old lover �“ one you remember with great fondness yet are always happy to see again.

Arizona Opera produced Mozart’s masterpiece last weekend in Tucson and continues in Phoenix this weekend.

It was both an artistic and an economic success here, playing to a sold-out house of 2,250 Saturday and close to standing room only at the Sunday matinee.

Like most great art, “Magic Flute” can be enjoyed on several levels.

To the children in the audience Sunday, and there were many, it is a wonderful fairy tale full of magic, ending with the good guys winning and living happily ever after. The bad guys, rather like the Margaret Hamilton they all know in “Wizard of Oz,” are suitably dispatched for their wicked deeds.

To the opera lover, it is a piece filled with familiar melodies spanning the simple tunes of Papageno with his pipe and bells to the lightningly electric coloratura of the Queen of the Night.

And then there is all the Free Mason imagery with which, apparently, Mozart was quite taken near the end of his life. The mystical number 3 appears with frequency �“ three ladies, three chords at the opening, three sets of boys to shepherd Tamino through his three trials, three flats in the key of E-flat in which the opening music is written. But it is the singing one goes to hear, after all.

Scott Ramsay is a trouper. After a successful performance Saturday night, he was called back on 30 minutes’ notice Sunday to repeat the role of Tamino, the other tenor having become indisposed. Although noticeably tentative in the opening scenes, Ramsay’s clear tenor and capable acting surfaced fully by the “Pamina’s Rescue” recitative early in Act I, and he continued to put in a fine performance.

Pamina on Sunday was Nathalie Paulin. Her character was just the right combination of sympathy for her plight as a kidnapped hostage and fortitude in fending off the creepy Monostatos, made deliciously evil and repulsive by Jason Ferrante. Paulin possesses a beautiful soprano and makes a very pleasing Pamina physically.

Heather Buck’s Queen of the Night fulfilled all our expectations based on her appearance here in “Semele” in 2005-2006. Her second act aria is, for this reviewer, the highlight of the opera, and it was perfection. Her coloratura range is more than up to the piece, and she richly deserved the “bravas” on her exit and the thunderous applause at the curtain call.

Don Quixote has his Sancho Panza, Marshal Dillon his Chester and Tamino his Papageno. The latter, a bumbling bird-catcher, provides both the humor of a rube and the dramatic foil to the heroic, virtuous prince who alone is able to survive the trials of Sarastro on the way to worthy purity. Corey McKern’s Papageno was simple and uneducated enough to be funny, yet sympathetic in his inability to keep silent and his desire for love, a wife and a family. Plus he sings well. The final duet with Maryann Madden’s youthful, exuberant Papagena was delightful.

This “Magic Flute” was more opulently, cleverly and consistently staged than any in memory. Sets and costumes, originally designed for Utah Opera, strikingly invoked the Egyptian setting from the seraglio grilling in the prison wall to the flowing veils of the three ladies, the tents of the desert, the sky-high pyramid, even the harem-like cushions. Everything said “Middle East,” including the palm tree.

Thaddeus Strassberger’s set design and direction moved actors and chorus very effectively, making a good sense of movement along with lots of grand visuals on the big stage.

The local reference to the uselessness of consulting a map when “all the freeway exits are closed anyway” delighted adults in the audience, and bits of business like tin can and string telephones plus the flying camel amused the children. Lighting by Nicholas Cavallaro employed a plethora of red on the cyclorama, evoking the setting sun of the desert as a portent to the dreaded arrival of the Queen of the Night.

General and Artistic Director Joel Revzen conducted, maintaining his usual fine pace and tempi. Not a whole lot can be done to shorten the soporific second act, but Revzen wisely cut some dialogue and members of the audience were still all in their seats at the final curtain.

One would hope that future audiences will take their cue from many of Sunday’s patrons who expressed their approval with enthusiastic applause and bravos without jumping to their feet. Overuse of anything in the theater vitiates its effectiveness, whether on stage or off.

For those who missed it, “The Magic Flute” will be at Symphony Hall in Phoenix at 7:30 p.m., March 6-8 and at 2 p.m. March 9. For ticket information visit: www.azopera.com.

The opera season concludes in Tucson on April 26 and 27 with another all-time favorite, Verdi’s “La Traviata.”

donald.behnke@yahoo.com