Sickle, hammer and pipes

"The Magic Flute" at the New Opera Theater

In the strange New Opera theater, which sometimes surprises with thoughtless, almost provincial productions, and sometimes suddenly takes on the appearance of a normal player on the European opera field, the second performance has appeared, made by current stars of European directing (the first such was Bellini’s “Norma” staged Yossi Villera and Sergio Morabito). The city has now seen Mozart’s second “Magic Flute” in a row, behind which there is a legendary world director’s name, and in the subcortex of which is not only the ideas, experience and symbolism of high art, but also the most public theater.

The first to amaze the public was the Briton Graham Vick at the Bolshoi Theater, where Papageno smoked on stage, Tamino appeared in front of the public against the background of graffiti with a naked torso, and many scenes were imbued with rude buffoonery. And now it is very difficult to refrain from comparisons. “The Magic Flute” by the German artist, director, set designer and dreamer, Brecht’s student, the king of experimental scenes and the conqueror of the snobbish Salzburg public Achim Freier is filled with similar ideas of a square booth, a home-made theater of puppet-cardboard parsleys, pierresses and aunts with huge round false breasts. However, this is not the only thing in common between Vic’s performance and Fryer’s performance. Coming out to the Russian public with a dizzying Mozartian score, both gentlemen offered it not only charming swearing, trickery and gentle humor on the verge of a foul, but also thoughts about the experience of their own state with its authoritarian inclinations. In both Vic and Fryer, the Masonic kingdom of Sarastro is a slightly militant and threatening kingdom of the world order, firmly convinced of its rightness. In both Vic and Fryer, the world of the Queen of the Night and the world of Sarastro oppose each other, like the feminine and masculine principles. But the curious similarity of ideas and fields in which the directors work not only brought them closer together, but also separated them. In Vick's performance, the hints at Sarastro's authoritarianism are more vague, the characters' images are more modern, and the ideology of femininity and masculinity is more confusing. In Fryer's performance, everything is structured with the clarity of a poster from the tens and twenties - here the logic of action, at least on the surface, looks sharp, almost primitive, naive and colorful.

The stage space is designed as a brilliant joke - it is a very popular box in modern theater, but the perspective drawn on it is false. Irony permeates every character to the bones - the Queen of the Night grows to the ceiling (however, this is not the first time she does this in Fryer’s “flutes”) and shows the audience a giant leg. A huge brick flies straight onto the heads of the orchestra members, and the audience gasps, a rubber kite crawls out between Tamino-Pierro’s legs, and the adults giggle stupidly. But all these jokes are subordinated to a sharply ironic dramatic spring. The kingdom of femininity and love is a silly, fickle farce. On the head of the Queen and her daughter Pamina there is a sickle, first referring to lunar symbols. And only when we see hammers in the hands of Sarastro’s servants, it becomes clear that this struggle between male and female refers not only to the archaic, but also to the worker and the collective farmer. Sarastro is not an abstract authoritarian ruler from Vika, but the most ordinary Stalin, albeit of enormous size, and even looking like a cartoon janitor, and even surrounded by substitute copies. Faces with painted huge mustaches on one side and faces with clown makeup, black tears and huge mouths on the other - all this fairground running around at some point begins to produce a scary impression. Jokes aside, Stalin is Stalin and felt boots (many are offended, they say: “These Europeans only imagine us in felt boots”), and power and love, which in the finale turn into the stupid cardboard happiness of two gutta-percha sailors Tamino and Pamina, is a farce with frighteningly polysemantic and piercing metaphors that you don’t want to interpret, but feel with your skin, as, in fact, it’s supposed to be in a good booth. When you laugh and cry, you feel like a god in front of cardboard people, and then you freeze and break out in a cold sweat when seemingly plush, but therefore even more scary, dogs with red tongues and eyes the size of saucers appear in front of you.

Regarding felt boots, one can note that it is surprising that a society that longs to see itself great, and not just somehow, but exactly like in the past, but when a mirror with felt boots appears in front of it, it begins to get bored and does not recognize itself. In this sense, Fryer's mirror is truly magical, because it is playfully ironic and straightforward at the same time. You can hide from it, but by looking into it you can be scared and grieve.

Finally, about the work done in the performance by the New Opera troupe. As for vocals, we can note the efficient work of Ekaterina Bakanova - Queen of the Night and the diligent work of Tatyana Pechnikova - Pamina. Still not without flaws, but colorful, rich and lively sound of the orchestra. Conductor Eri Klas conducts “Flute” at a cheerful, comfortable pace, successfully and deftly builds a balance, keeping the audience in suspense, either enchanting with the hypnotic beauty, or amusing with the foolishness of Mozart’s melodies. So, without shining in the vocal part, “Flute” nevertheless builds into an excellent whole - with all its Russian dialogues (not a hundred percent, but in this case a completely convincing solution), German-language singing, a fair-like live orchestra in the pit and a scary , a funny and sad farce on stage.

Yulia BEDEROVA