Schikaneder's en Mozart's fairytale about love, trust and religion is layered with humor, death, adventure, and unconditionally loving. The opera has been popular right from the start in 1791. It's more a play with songs -like My Fair Lady (or, to stay in opera-lingo: Die Entführung aus dem Serail). The libretto is good although Schikaneder's dialogs are not that time-resistant; they do sound a bit over-explanation-like (if that's a word). They deserve a good dramatizer to bring those dialogs into this century.

August Everding made the scenery and did a good job -a bit too good. Sometimes less is more, and here is a case where that's true. The massive set pieces look wonderful but take over much of the energy of the cast and Everding should have realized that. Wolfgang Sawallisch conducts and does a OK job. Nothing too spectacular -I think he was in a hurry to get the last train home; I found the tempi a bit fast.

The cast. Well. Start with the good one's: Lucia Popp is (although already 43) a very good Pamina: she's very much in character and sings beautiful but "Ach, ich füll's" (Pamina's heart-breaking aria), was conducted so fast that I missed the sadness and despair. But she can act (could, Popp died much too young...). Wolfgang Brendel is OK as Papageno, his energy fills the huge stage and that's always nice to see. He's on the edge of over-acting but it's very difficult where the concentration lies for singers: with the life-audience or the film-camera's; those two disciplines have their own techniques -it's hard to combine them, of course. But his presence is lovely on stage.

And that's about it. Gudrun Sieber's Papagena is charming but her role's to small to make a lasting impression. Kurt Moll's Sarastro: good, deep Basso but no acting skills at all. And I don't think he's friendly -In my opinion Sarastro should be a friendly guy! Francisco Araiza (Tamino) think he's in a Donizetti-production: everything is fortissimo. In the finale of act I, he suddenly surprises me by almost whispering his recitative and I am touched by this. So he can do it! So why start so late?

I was disappointed by Edita Gruberova's Königin der Nacht (Queen of the Night) -she did not get those high notes. Believe me: she did not. Her high Q was a mere whisper and her acting is nothing spectacular either. Sorry Edita. Must have been strange for Popp as she used to be famous for singing that role. And of course the QOTN is an overrated role as she only sings two little numbers and plays one scene; that's it.

In general it's a nice thing to watch -but I was annoyed with the mishaps as I wanted to be invited into a fantasy world. And I should have as the music brought tears to my eyes in several scenes.

Mozart could write music!

Pieter