Germany Mozart, Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute): Soloists and Chorus of Eutiner Festspiele, Eutin Festival Orchestra / Laurent Wagner (conductor). Eutin, 23.7.2025. (DM-D)
The Eutin Festival was launched in 1951, in commemoration of the 125th anniversary of the death of Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826), who was born in Eutin. Under varying managements, the festival has presented a summer open-air programme of opera and music annually, with the exceptions of 2020 (Covid) and 2022 (construction of the new 1945-seat auditorium). This year saw the Festival’s 13th production of Die Zauberflöte.
After Eutin productions of La bohème in 2021 and Madama Butterfly in 2022, Igor Folwill returned to direct. The set, designed for the production by Jörg Brombacher, played with variations on symmetries. A sign of the sun towered high up on the stage to the left, and a sign of a crescent moon was in a symmetrical position to the right. On the centre of the stage floor was a slightly angled round and raised surface depicting what looked like a maze, with two smaller circular raised platforms each to the right and the left, in white and red on the left, and yellow and blue on the right. The round platforms were of different diameters. Further regular and irregular symmetries were spread across elements of the stage, sometimes foregrounded, sometimes visible, sometimes not, depending on the lighting (particularly as daylight receded). The lighting contributed vividly to this kind of symmetry, bathing different stage areas with impressively assorted colours, with blue/violet for the night, shades of gold for the lovers and Sarastro, and combinations for the journeys through fire and water. For the scenes in which we hear Papageno’s glockenspiel, the space above the centre of the stage opened to reveal Mozart playing a carillon (played by Antje Wissemann, who served as chorus director for the production and is the chief organist in Eutin).
Folwill’s direction pursued similar symmetries in terms of characterisation. Each major character was recognizably what she or he was supposed or expected to be, but against that conventional representation, unexpected moments or features stood out, suggesting that none of the characters was as one-dimensional as potentially implied by expectation or the fairy-tale genre. For example, the production did not seek to make the relatively young singer of Sarastro, Sava Vemić, look or appear old, as is often the casting decision or the production interpretation. It made particular and surprising sense, when at the end of the opera, a youngish Sarastro handed over the insignia of power to an even younger Tamino. Towards the beginning of the opera, when Tamino is asked by Papageno who he is, he answers that because he is the son of a king, he is called prince. On saying this, he opens his blue coat, revealing the word ‘Prinz’ printed in bold letters on his shirt. Toward the end of the opera, the Queen of the Night recognizes, and most importantly, accepts Sarastro’s victory as a recurring cycle of life, with day following night and night following day as part of the laws of the universe. This insight is the basis for a believable gesture toward her daughter Pamina – when Pamina walks toward her rejected mother full of daughterly love and concern, the Queen’s gentle but firm movement of bringing her hands away from her body, open palms towards Pamina is sufficient to convey the motivation; Pamina accepts it and is able to return to Sarastro and Tamino without her mother’s fate hanging over her and them.
If orchestra and singers were amplified, the sound system was indeed excellent, and amplification was not noticeable, let alone obvious. Indication of this: the singer’s voices were markedly different in volume and emanated from the precise location of the singers on the vast stage, not from everywhere or nowhere in particular. Konstantin Lee as Tamino had a precisely focused, beautiful voice, at ease across registers, with well-executed crescendos and ringing top notes. He was particularly good at conveying emotions vocally. Jasmin Delfs was convincingly moving in the vocal depiction of Pamina’s emotional journey. Her voice was full and rounded, with a sparkling bloom in the development of the top range. Dimitra Kotidou as the Queen of the Night was both assured and relaxed in her two arias, displaying a rich lower and middle vocal range to serve as the basis of particularly full and sustained rather than thin or sharp coloratura. Ines Lex, Sarah Hudarew, and Sandra Gerlach gave the Three Ladies vocal individuality, and Marie Maidowski was a charming, cheerful Papagena.
Sava Vemić sang Sarastro with a voluminous, well-controlled voice, taking his aria ‘In diesen heiligen Hallen’ at an unusually fast pace, with a more conventionally slower ‘O Isis und Osiris’. The obvious attention to technique in singing the lowest range of the score paid off. Achim Hoffmann was suitably funny as Papageno and sang with appropriate aplomb. For Monostatos, the production chose to keep the original textual identification of the character as black, while an awareness of the implications of the problematic identification was highlighted creatively by having Leon Noel Wepner appear not in blackface but with all the bare parts of his body (face, neck, arms, legs) made up in a dark violet colour. Wepner sang the role with a pleasant, accurate character tenor. Renatus Mészár sang the Speaker (here a blind man in a white gown and cane, guided by a page) with sonorous authority. Mészár has made a name for himself with the major bass-baritone Wagner repertory in Germany, in particular Wotan, and brought that experience to the role. He also sang the Second Man in Armour. Erik Voß, Werner Klockow and Markus Ahme gave their all to their roles of the First and Second Priest and as the First Man in Armour. Nardi Thonen, Sran Oh and Maki Moriyama as the Three Boys also assisted with the scene changes and animated the dragon at the beginning of the opera. They were dressed in black and white, taking up the ideas of symmetries characteristic of the entire production.
Laurent Wagner conducted the orchestra brought together for this Eutin Festival. They created a rich sound from underneath a rainproof area like a roofed-over orchestra pit in between auditorium and stage. The pace was settled, allowing for a rich tapestry of nuance. Throughout, Wagner carefully signalled entries, thus ensuring good communication between the orchestra and the singers.
Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe
Production:
Director – Igor Folwill
Set design – Jörg Brombacher
Costume design – Gesa Gröning
Lighting design – Andreas Schmidt
Make-up – Karin Schromm
Chorus director and carillon – Antje Wissemann
Cast:
Sarastro – Sava Vemić
Queen of the Night – Dimitra Kotidou
Pamina – Jasmin Delfs
Tamino – Konstantin Lee
Papageno – Achim Hoffmann
Papagena – Marie Maidowski
Monostatos – Leon Noel Wepner
Speaker – Renatus Mészár
First Boy – Nardi Thonen
Second Boy – Sran Oh
Third Boy – Maki Moriyama
First Lady – Ines Lex
Second Lady – Sarah Hudarew
Third Lady – Sandra Gerlach
First Priest – Erik Voss
Second Priest – Werner Klockow
First Man in Armour – Markus Ahme
Second Man in Armour – Renatus Mészár