Nathan Gunn plays Pappageno as a straightforward idiot with no hint of the complexity that this character can have. Erika Miklósa is an unexciting Queen of the Night. Matthew Polenzani is an uninspiring Tamino, although it is an uninspiring role. Ying Huang is a delectable Pamina, although I fear that she suffers more than the other principals from cuts in her music. René Pape is about as good a Sarastro as you can get. She gets round Mozart's sexism by making Sarastro an equal opportunities employer with half of the priests in his brotherhood being women. Taymor gets round Mozart's racism by having a whiteface Monostatos. Eliminating the dialogue means that the opera makes even less sense than usual. But, and there has to be a but, this emphasis on the visual is at the expense of the music and the drama. All the costumes are magnificent: I could have spent the entire production just trying to work out how they constructed Sarastro's cloak. As the Queen of the Night sings, a troupe of puppeteers is required to manipulate her sensational costume. There are animal dancers in fantastical costumes, wild animal puppets, and a huge prehistoric bird that caries the three boys across the stage. Visually this production is spectacular, as you might expect from Julie Taymor. Curiously though, I could only spot a couple of children among the usual audience of well-heeled, middle-aged New Yorkers. The object, I imagine, was to produce a Magic Flute that the whole family, including young children could enjoy. It cuts an hour off the usual running time, mainly by omitting most of the dialogue but also by omitting some arias or by reducing them in length. It is the first of a series of what the Met calls special holiday presentations. That is why I should not be too grumpy about this production of the Magic Flute, directed by Julie Taymor. Admittedly, we in the UK have to wait eight months before we can see them but it is still very exciting. Suddenly there is a huge technological leap forward as they are broadcast live in widescreen, high definition television. For as many years as I can remember there have been radio broadcasts of Saturday matinées from the New York Met.
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