Back in early August I reported that Kenneth Branagh, one of my favorite film directors, was making a film of The Magic Flute (I am presuming that since Stephen Fry is writing the libretto, it will be in English, so I don't think we should be calling this Die Zauberflote). I just read a new article that came from The Guardian, and in addition to the previously announced casting (Joseph Kaiser as Tamino, newcomer Amy Carson - a recent Cambridge graduate - as Pamina, Lyubov Petrova as the Queen of the Night, Ben Davis as Papageno, and René Pape as Sarastro) it reports that the conductor will be James Conlon leading the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. The film will cost $27 million (£15.2 million) and is being bankrolled by Peter Moores, who has financed all the opera-in-English recordings on Chandos. The soundtrack was recorded at Shepperton Studios in September. That's the good news.
Now to what might be the bad news. I assumed that this would not be a "traditional" production - after all, neither Branagh's version of Much Ado About Nothing or Hamlet take place in the 16th Century, and he updated Love's Labour Lost (which I haven't seen) to make it a 1930's musical. Since the first two films were brilliant - in fact, I would say Much Ado About Nothing is one of the most beautiful, joyous, life-affirming films of the 1990s, I didn't think a time-transplanted production from Branagh would be a problem. I assumed that however he set it, the film would have the very strong element of fantasy, wonder and mystery which is so necessary in this opera. Indeed, one early report referred to Lyubov Petrova's character as "Queen Elizabeth of the Night", so I thought that it might have been updated to an Elizabethan setting. However, apparently Branagh has decided to set the film during World War I, about as unfantastical, setting I can imagine. The Three Ladies will be field nurses and Papageno will be, instead of a birdcatcher, the custodian of the canaries used to detect lethal gas (so much for his innocence!). Per another interview of Branagh by the BBC, Tamino is a young soldier set off on a journey in pursuit of love on the eve of battle, which takes him to a twilight dream world. OK, that last might possibly work, especially for the tests of fire and water. And I'll admit that you can probably get away with a lot more in film than you can on stage. But, despite my admiration for Branagh, I'm still worried.
By the way, Joseph Kaiser, a member of the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists, has just replaced the originally scheduled Hugh Smith as Mark in Lyric Opera's production of Sir Michael Tippett's The Midsummer Marriage. Rumors are that Lyric Opera paid almost $100,000 for Smith's contract. I'm not familar enough with the opera to comment, but I think Smith (who, admittedly, I last heard at least 5 or 6 years ago) is an excellent tenor and it's a shame he's not getting more promotion. And director Peter Hall has just pulled out at the last minute due to illness.
More on The Magic Flute (actually, this time it is Die Zauberflöte) front: There is a new recording of the opera coming out on DG (I'm not sure whether it is a live or studio recording - I suspect the former): The Mahler Chamber Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado with Christoph Strehl (who makes his Met debut in the role in 2006-2007) as Tamino, Dorothea Röschmann as Pamina, Erika Miklosa as the Queen of the Night, Hanno Muller-Brachmann as Papageno, and René Pape as Sarastro. Now that I'm not worried about!
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