Collaborators are giving ‘Magic Flute’ a makeover
Since disappointment is linked, by definition, to expectations, the best way to avoid disappointment would seem to be avoiding expectations.
The announcement of an opera company producing Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte” (“The Magic Flute”) is a great example of something that would trigger grand expectations, including images of fabulous sets and costumes, a drop-dead rendition of “Der Hölle Roche” (the “Queen of the Night” aria), and gorgeous orchestral playing.
But the announcement that Milwaukee Opera Theatre is performing “Zie Magic Flute” triggers something much closer to gleeful curiosity than finely honed expectations.
“We are simply not built to do a traditional ‘Magic Flute’,” said the Milwaukee Opera Theatre’s producing artistic director Jill Anna Ponasik.
But the scrappy opera company is built to do wildly creative, constantly surprising productions of pretty much everything they take on, including a “Mikado” a few years ago that included boomwhackers, a ukulele and two toy pianos in its accompanying “orchestra.”
Ponasik explained the upcoming “Magic Flute” production, which will be performed under the dome of the Tripoli Shrine Center, saying, “It is with utter love and homage that we dive into it and tinker with it to make it fit our weird capacities and those of our collaborating organizations.”
So much for traditional expectations.
Ponasik explained that music-theater artist and Milwaukee Opera Theatre company manager Danny Brylow has prepared an English translation of the opera’s libretto.
In addition, the opera company is collaborating with Quasimondo Milwaukee Physical Theatre and Cadance Collective to create a production unlike any you’ve seen before.
Brian Rott , Quasimondo’s artistic director, explained that most of that ensemble’s work is original or “devised,” adding, “We choose a general topic or subject, or maybe a short story or a piece of text as a point of departure.”
“Through research, discussion, exercises and rehearsal, we start forming scenes and building a production based on the ensemble. We turn that into an original piece,” he said.
Ponasik’s description was breezier that Rott’s, but effectively the same, “We’re making it up as we go, as we always do.”
Just in case you still think you know what to expect, you should know that Cadance Collective combines the eclectic skill sets of cellist-vocalist Alicia Storin, dancer-choreographer-vocalist Christal Wagner and flutist-vocalist-dancer-ukuleleist Emma Koi.
You might also want to know that when outfitted with an appropriate strap apparatus, cellists can in fact play and dance simultaneously.
Ponasik said that “Zie Magic Flute” will “drift closest to Mozart’s world” in the German-language performances of the Queen of Night’s two arias. She added that some of the opera will be spoken, rather than sung, and there will be movement, much, much, movement.
Ponasik said the collaborative production project has its roots in an undergraduate “Magic Flute lab” that she and Rott taught recently at UWParkside. “Those students helped us figure out a youthful perspective on the opera.”
“We asked the students questions in the very first class,” Ponasik said. “We took away their phones and made them put pens to paper and write what they thought ‘Magic Flute’ was about.”
One student, she said, wrote “Magic, lying, love and more magic.” So maybe that’s the expectation those who need one ought to take with them to the Tripoli Shrine Center.