Photo Credit: Mark Frohna
Friday, Jan. 20, 2017, saw the debut of Zie Magic Flute. The imaginative adaptation of Wolfgang Mozart’s (1756-’91) The Magic Flute by Milwaukee Opera Theatre (MOT) and friends coincided with Inauguration Day for the current U.S. president. “It was helpful to do a Mozart opera that night instead of sitting home, watching television,” says Jill Anna Ponasik, MOT’s artistic director.
In collaboration with MOT, Quasimondo Physical Theatre and Cadence Collective, Zie Magic Flute returns this month to a story-appropriate setting, the Historic Tripoli Shrine Center. Why is the production such a welcome break from bleak politics? The Magic Flute’s message is signaled by an overture ascending on golden chords of optimism to a better world. Dressed up as an adventure-romance in exotic locales, the singspiel (dialogue mixed with operatic song) that follows concerns the triumph of good over evil and the future over the past. And, like a Hollywood movie, it has a spoiler-alert plot twist. “It’s about letting light into darkness, letting go of grievances; it’s a nice piece for opening the New Year,” Ponasik says. “It’s about facing fears and coming together.”
Zie Magic Flute grew out of an opera class at UW-Whitewater taught by Ponasik and Quasimondo’s Brian Rott. “We carpooled each week. It was a 50-minute ride, and those were our production meetings,” Ponasik recalls. “It developed through exercises and conversation with our students.”
Light vs. Darkness; Order vs. Chaos
The libretto, as adapted by Daniel Brylow, includes elements of Emanuel Schikaneder’s (1751-1812) original lyrics as sung by the Queen of the Night. “We drew a spectrum,” Ponasik explains. The Queen of the Night, who rules the forest of darkness, “is a deranged force of vengeful emotion. She sings in German. Sarastro, keeper of the light, doesn’t sing at all. He’s super logical and speaks in English.” Other characters, as Ponasik points outs out, “fall along the spectrum.” The three ladies who serve the Queen “communicate in English when they have to.”
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Papageno, the half-human creature with a small brain but enormous appetites, “sings some parts in German,” while the male protagonist, Tamino, sticks to English. The arrangement creatively plays with Mozart’s concept of characters arranged by their vocal registers. In The Magic Flute, high voices signaled the shrill fury of unilluminated chaos. By contrast, Sarastro, embodying good order and positive change, was written for a deep, reassuring bass.
“The Magic Flute is full of treasures; every time you look at it, you see something else,” Ponasik says. “It’s all about balance: speaking and singing, movement and stillness, darkness and light, nobility and baser elements… and gender balance.” To the latter end, the female lead, Pamina, effects her own escape from imprisonment instead of waiting to be rescued in one of several scenes “given a new tilt,” as Ponasik puts it.
Zie Magic Flute’s staging involves a giant papier-mâché dragon. Costumes crisscross the ages from powdered wigs to T-shirts. Arrayed at stage center are a dancer and musicians—piano, cello and (of course) flute. The opera’s action unfolds around the music. The third concentric circle is the audience in the round. “The melodies and harmonies are all Mozart,” Ponasik adds. “We don’t suddenly turn an aria into a klezmer song. Nothing is wildly out of context.”
Aside from its gilt-edged Orientalist glamour, the Tripoli Shrine Center is an ironically apt site for the production. When The Magic Flute debuted in 1791, Mozart and Schikaneder allegedly drew threats from Freemasons angered that the opera revealed their secrets. Nowadays, all has been forgiven. For Sarastro’s costume, the Shriners kindly lent a fez. As Ponasik says of Zie Magic Flute’s masonic origins, “We embrace the broader concepts of brotherhood and enlightenment, of coming together as a community. When we first performed it, we got a lot of emails saying, ‘In this time of darkness, thank you for bringing so much light.”
Zie Magic Flute will be performed Jan. 18-27 at the Historic Tripoli Shrine Center, 3000 W. Wisconsin Ave. For tickets, call 1-800-838-3006 or visit milwaukeeoperatheatre.org.
