High profile Met debut for Golda Schultz

Some young singers make their Metropolitan Opera debuts in low-profile fashion, perhaps joining the company in a minor role or slipping into the second cast of a routine revival. Not Golda Schultz.

The South African soprano became an instant star on the third night of the new season, singing the lead role in Mozart’s “Die Zauberfloete’’ (“The Magic Flute’’) in Julie Taymor’s fantastical production. Her conductor was none less than James Levine, the company’s music director emeritus. And her debut run gets even higher visibility this Saturday when the final performance is broadcast live in HD to movie theatres worldwide.

Schultz portrays Pamina, daughter of the malevolent Queen of the Night, who finds happiness with her true love, Prince Tamino, but only after both undergo a series of ordeals.

Pamina is sometimes viewed as a rather passive character whose fate is played out by forces beyond her control. Schultz disagrees.

“I think a lot of people seem to underrate her,’’ she said in an interview at the Met. “I find she is surprisingly strong.

“She is the one who saves herself,’’ she said. “She tells Tamino: ‘Listen here, my father made the flute, the flute’s magic, watch it do what it can. We’re going to get through these trials together. Not you saving me, but we’ll help each other.’ So it’s quite a modern understanding of relationships.’’

The role provides Schultz with an ideal opportunity to show off her lyric soprano voice, notable for her ability to loft high notes on a cushion of sound.

In The New York Times, critic Zachary Woolfe remarked on the moment when she is reunited with Tamino before their final trials, writing: “She floated a line as plainly beautiful as anything I heard’’ during the opening week of the season.

The line in question starts with just two notes as she sings the first two syllables of Tamino’s name: first the C above middle C, then up to A natural. That’s an interval known as an ascending major sixth, which Schultz said is “one of those very special intervals that Mozart uses a lot.