Simon McBurney’s The Magic Flute coming back to ENO still promises a night full of magic
Every time I watch a production where Complicité are involved, I feel the joy akin to playing open-world video games: infinities of exploration. This production of The Magic Flute, collaborated with ENO, Dutch National Opera, and Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, is of no exception. The medley of everything – Mozart’s music, the ENO orchestra, the cast and ensemble, as well as the video and foley artists – creates a unique and irreplaceable chemistry.
A hallmark of Complicité is their adept use of real-time cameras, a feature prevalent across their productions. Despite some (inside the academia) deeming this technique as somewhat outdated, this ten-year production of The Magic Flute with two revivals challenges such notions. It showcases that the essence of theatre techniques lies not in trends but in how and why the practitioners may use it, what fresh sensations and perspectives it can offer, and what sorts of connotations they endeavour to convey. The video artist Ben Thompson, settled at the wing of stage right, employs this technique masterfully by using a chalkboard to draw doodles and lines that elaborate character backgrounds and the storyline, which are projected live onto the grand scrim. At first, you may think it merely a pre-recorded projection, but the live nature of this performance is soon revealed.
Another signature of Complicité: everything goes live, the cast, the sound, and the video camera. Even in traditional productions, Papageno (David Stout) engages the audience the most, while live camera significantly enhances such engagement. When Papageno sighs, overwhelmed by his longing for finding the love of his life, the camera whimsically scanning the faces of ladies in the auditorium. It halts on a young lady and Papageno rushes to her navigating the sea of seats. He then dashes back to Thompson’s little video booth, writing down his phone number on the chalkboard, which is again, broadcasted live on the scrim. This scene ignites laughter and brims with humour, while it also deepens our bonds with Papageno. Like most people, he may lack talent for being enlightened, but he is an earnest and kind friend who will also not be corrupted. He will not align with the queen of the night, but will always be at your side. Much like the paper-bird ensemble he is associated with, especially the one that has been stepped on, leaving it weary and tattered, this tired and wounded man still struggles to strive. In contrast to Julie Taymor’s colourful rendition of The Magic Flute, this production embraces a much darker, more subdued palette, resembling the depressing historical period before enlightenment, while Papageno (and later, Papagena) serves as the sole bursts of colour. With his earthly desires and simple joys, Papageno is more reminiscent to us amidst the grand theme of enlightenment that pervades the opera.
The live video creation reaches its zenith during the breathtaking trial scenes of fire and water, rendering them with serene beauty. In collaboration with the foley artist, the team crafts a cataclysmic fire and a massive downpour of water, illustrating both a sense of sublimity and tranquillity. In the final scene, the video camera, positioned high in the fly loft, captures Tamino and Pamina (Sarah Tynan) encircled by the ensemble. The projection witnesses the ensemble’s hands outstretching towards the centre, forming a radiant, sun-like pattern with the loving duo at its heart. With the chalkboard writing wisdom and love, this scene per se has actually become such an embodiment. It suggests that trials, in any form, are essential to achieve humanity.
The main stage features a vast, multi-use board suspended by wires at its four corners. This board seems like a huge, conceptualised hell trapdoor, a device dated back to Elizabethan theatres, coming into realisation. While it undeniably symbolises the gates of hell, in this production, it transforms the stage into a liminal space bridging the dark, medieval regime of the night queen (Rainelle Krause), and the enlightened realm ushered in by Sarastro (John Relyea), the Prospero-like patron guiding Tamino (Norman Reinhardt) through his journey and guarding the brave new world. Through the design by Michael Levine, Sarastro’s temple is reimagined as a colossal library, where the three doors of wisdom, truth and reason become leather-bound books. Compared to hell trapdoors in more conventional proscenium arches, this suspended main stage renders instability and liminality, which are, to some extent, at the core of this production. For most Complicité’s works, it is often the case that no fixated meanings nor absolute binaries can be found. While Mozart might want to suggest a clear dichotomy, such clarity of distinction has been greatly dissolved in this production.
However, this production does present a fascinating contrast between the vast, transitional space of the liminal “hell” and the singular “flute” — the very instrument played by the flautist in the orchestra, which Tamino acquires in Act II and returns just before the couple’s trial. For Mozart, wind instruments, particularly the flute and clarinet, are synonymous with revelation. They embody not just the ethereal elegance that seems to waft from distant horizons but also serve as torches of enlightenment amidst darkness and chaos.
“Perhaps music itself can have an effect, a civilising effect on human beings” (Simon McBurney, “Making of Die Zauberflöte”), says McBurney, who indeed has Mozart in his bones, while the ENO orchestra conducted by Erina Yashima, forms the lifeblood of this production, and of course, the entire opera cast, including the three attendances of the night queen and Sarastro’s priests and slaves, serves as the spirit.
Another magic wand of Complicité is live soundscape-making, a skill later much matured in their world-shaking The Encounter. The foley artist Ruth Sullivan at the stage left wing owns her tiny booth of “cocktail bar” where she uses to create a variety of ingenious sounds. This practice is quintessentially inherent in Complicité by challenging us to recognise what we hear. It may seem to be genuine, but actually is artificial. Pre-recorded hi-fidelity or live-making soundscapes, which is the answer? While McBurney explores much deeper in The Encounter, for The Magic Flute, the answer is definitely the latter.