Past Production Reviews
2Vigdis Bergitte Unsgård as Pamina was one of them with her warm soprano voice, as was the agile tenor that César Cortés gave to his Tamino. The second young couple, Samuel Chan as Papageno and Mengqi Zhang as Papagena, mastered their lively roles beautifully and confidently. Emma Posman took on the coloratura of the Queen of the Night very elated, Fred Hoffmann proved himself as Monostatos, while Thorsten Grümbel as Sarastro with a slim bass was in good hands here, in a conventional production it might have been more difficult. The women's trio with Agnieszka Hauzer, Tatia Jibladze and Fiorella Hincapié was fun, also vocally, and the boys' trio with the voices of Shayleen Zavazava, Luca Janicki and Laureena Wawerla was also remarkable. [...] The doubling of roles could be suspected of masking the prejudice against singers that they have less flexibility in acting and verbalizing a role. It has not been confirmed here. Especially the togetherness of the same people was enjoyable to watch. However, the number of participants is too large and taken as an excuse to only praise the actors in general.
The evening began with an interesting and funny doubling of what was happening on stage in the video. And especially in the middle part of the piece, an eerie portrait of the stone monster with its hidden corners and corridors is drawn on the revolving stage. It is a house where the sun enters only to die. The lightbulb flickers, in a wooden chamber an illuminated fan creates a spooky atmosphere. In part, Anna Viebrock collages older productions here, accompanied by Debussy's deceptive soundscapes. But when video sequences are recorded after the actual piece, recorded inside the National Theater, accompanied by dialogues from Elio Petri's science fiction film "La decima vittima", it all becomes too much, too vague, too slapstick. In the end, the extension of the piece has almost no effect at all, at least the viewer doesn't really get closer to Lady Madeline. It would have been better if the line had been drawn earlier. This leaves 90 long minutes with only restrained applause.
