Ravinia 2023 Issue 4

Lawn Clippings By John Schauer What’s Opera, Doc? RAVINIA OPERAPHILES can rejoice that on August 4 and 6, Marin Alsop will continue the festival’s glorious tradition of mounting Mozart operas in the delightfully intimate Martin Theatre with two performances of The Magic Flute , one of my two favorite Mozart operas. I can prove it is, because when I perused my sprawling CD collection, I realized I have seven recordings of Flute , and Don Giovanni is a close second, with six, while I have only one recording each of Ab- duction from the Seraglio , The Marriage of Figaro , Così fan tutte , and Idomeneo . Blasphemy Alert: I’m not really all that crazy about those other operas. I know The Marriage of Figaro is regarded as one of the towering operatic master- works of all time, but my impression is that while the first four hours are enjoy- able, the second half starts to drag. I know saying that will probably result in my Classical Music Nerd button being revoked, but sitting through numerous perfor- mances has only confirmed my reaction. And don’t even get me started on Così fan tutte , although here I’m in good company: Beethoven considered the story immoral, and Wagner found the libretto flimsy and unworthy of Mozart’s effort. Interestingly, even Tchaikovsky, who worshipped Mozart as “the musical Christ,” had problems with The Magic Flute , not the music but rather the libretto: “Never was so senselessly stupid a subject set to such captivating music.” But if the plot has left some listeners nonplussed, that is probably due to the underlying web of Masonic symbolism that eludes many today but at the time of its premiere was common currency among the educated class. And even those who are un- able to perceive any meaningful symbolism can still take pleasure in the beguil- ing fairy-tale nature of the story. Pursuing the Masonic minutiae in 18th-century occult manuscripts can be fun (at least for a Classical Music Nerd), but isn’t necessary to enjoy the endless succession of great tunes Mozart crammed into it. If you only know the work from recordings that present only the musical portions, you might be surprised that it contains spoken dialogue. A lot of it. For this reason, in Mozart’s time it was called a Singspiel (pronounced ZING-shpeel), which literally means “sing-play,” but today we think of it simply as one of Mo- zart’s operas. And in most staged productions, the dialogue is cut rather heavily. You might say Mozart’s “Sing” has aged better than his “Spiel.” Many of you are probably asking yourself, “But isn’t the whole point of an opera that everything is sung? Isn’t that why Tommy and Jesus Christ Superstar are called rock operas ?” That may have been the driving principle of the group of Italian intellectuals called the Florentine Camerata who essentially invented opera around 1600, but over the years a whole slew of related forms besides the German Singspiel appeared in various countries: the French had opera comique (which has nothing to do with comedy—the tragedy of Carmen is technically an opera comique), the English had ballad opera, the Spanish had zarzuelas, and the Austrians had the operetta, which sort of morphed into the Broadway musical. Boundaries between various forms of music theater, like most boundaries in our quickly mutating time, aren’t always clear. Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd has virtually no spoken dialogue, but is thought of as a Broadway musical. Or is it? The work has been produced at Houston Grand Opera, New York City Opera. Lyric Opera of Chicago, Royal Opera of London, Finnish National Opera, Israeli National Opera, San Francisco Opera, and countless opera houses around the world, often with mainstream opera singers. What’s going on? New York Times music critic Bernard Holland came up with a definition that is as useful as any: “There is only one workable definition of opera. Opera is something that happens in an opera house. Site is everything. Play a Haydn quar- tet in Merkin Concert Hall, and it is chamber music. Play it at Joe’s Pub, and it becomes a nightclub act. Mr. Sondheim’s Follies had a brief revival at the Belasco Theater not long ago. Putting on La traviata in the same place would have made it a Broadway musical.” So, according to Mr. Holland, when Lyric Opera puts on Sweeney Todd , Show- boat , or Fiddler on the Roof as part of their regular subscription series, they aren’t, as some purists might sniff, slumming. They’re putting on American operas. So what is The Magic Flute when Ravinia presents it in the Martin Theatre? Heaven. Pure heaven. John Schauer is a freelance writer whose Classical Music Nerd button will have to be pried out of his cold, dead hands. Much of the most memorable imagery of The Magic Flute centers not on Tamino, who possesses the titular instrument, but The Queen of the Night, the mother of his beloved Pamina—such as this set design for the “Hall of Stars” in the Queen’s palace. Not coincidentally, the Queen delivers one of the most memorable numbers not just in Flute but all of opera in the second act, a fast-paced song of vengeful rage punctuated with staccato notes in the soprano singer’s upper register. Fans of the Oscar-winning biographical drama Amadeus will recognize that aria (“Der Hölle Rache”) from the climactic scenes before Mozart’s death. RAVINIA MAGAZINE • JULY 31 – AUGUST 14, 2023 20