The opera performance was excellent. You know, Jay Nordlinger and recently David Pryce-Jones have all complained about directors "reworking" old productions, staging them in times where they don't belong, politicizing works of art that need no additional political baggage. Fortuantely, none of these attributes reared their head for this performance. This was Mozart as close to what Mozart probably intended as you could possibly get in this day and age. The costumes were traditional, the noble man from Italy was wearing garb suitable for a noble man in Mozart's day, you know jacket and pantaloons, a pony-tail with a tie in the back. The ladies were wearing the big ornate dresses and even wigs. The Pasha was wearing, well, Pasha clothing. There were no Nazi uniforms or nude women or orgy scenes. Excellent.
And the music itself was even good. I have to admit, however, that the orchestra had a bit of a muted sound throughout the first act, and the singing was good, but nothing absolutely exceptional. I'd say that in some of the arias, they perhaps took more of the repeats than were absolutely necessary. You don't realize it the recording I have, but they have pared it down from what must have been written originally. I guess Mozart needed filler so he just put in that extra repeat symbol a few extra times.
However, in the second act, things picked up dramatically after Constanze's big aria, "Tutte le torture." I am personally not sure if there was some change in the orchestra, the conducting, or if it is simply the score itself, but the opera became immensely more exciting and engaging at that point. Perhaps it takes the threat of death and torture to bring out the really best. (For those with my music collection, there's a recording of Maria Callas performing this very aria at the Dallas Opera house as part of her rehearsal to her US premier, in Dallas.) The singing was great. Sure, no one was Maria Callas, but still excellent. Ok, so maybe Constanze had a few bobbles in the Queen-of-the-Night style sections, but I wouldn't say it greatly detracted from the experience.
Oh, and one last thing, they chose to do all of the singspiel in English. This was perhaps the largest change that they made, but I thought it was appropriate. I mean, they are just blabbering in German in the original, why not put it in English for everyone to understand. It's much better than following along with subtitles.
On another note completely, did I mention that I was in Colorado just over two weeks ago? Sorry. I think that my receiver was in quite a happy place here in the Front Range, just outside Denver.
Does it get much better than that?
