Photo Credit: Kathy Wittman, Ball Square Films
Photo by Kathy Wittman
The Florentine Opera’s season finale, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, offered new delights. It rose to moments of understated inspiration in a well-mounted production of minimalistic vertical planes, subtly lit and readily movable, subtly adding a quiet dimension to this gentle serene work. Mozart’s lovely metaphysical fantasy has been an audience pleaser for centuries, and the full house on opening night was further testimony to the enduring popularity of the composer’s final opera, completed only months before his death.
The Magic Flute is a gentle opera beguiling in its warm simplicity, seemingly less complex than the composer’s other stage work but requiring a cast with whom audiences wild easily identify. The Florentine’s provided some outstanding soloists who seemed to take their roles to heart in an eager to please manner. As the idealistic Tamino, tenor Noah Stewart employed his reedy instrument to full advantage, but his voice became more fluid and warmer as he gradually developed his characterization with greater authority. Soprano Jamie-Rose Guarrine employed her lovely full ranged ringing soprano to full advantage as Pamina and cut an appealing figure onstage.
A beautifully costumed Laura Pisani made her U.S. stage début in the famously difficult role of the evil queen of the night, bravely assaying the treacherously challenging coloratura passages above the staff. She almost flounders at first but wins rising applause in the second act. As her foil, the virtuous Sarastro, guardian of the temple of wisdom, Jeffrey Beruan cut an imposing figure with his rich, low ranging bass baritone. Tenor Thomas Leighton provided a more genuine touch of evil in his stunning portrayal of the licentious Monostatos tormenting the hapless Pamima.
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Perhaps the most winning performance was baritone Will Liverman’s well-sung characterization of the hapless bird catcher Papageno whose humorous foibles remind us that not everyone qualifies for the temple of wisdom and that Mozart intended Magic Flute as a satiric romantic fable. Subsidiary characters performed equally well in this beautifully directed, easy on the eyes production, sadly reminding us the director William Florescu will not be with the Florentines next year.
