What city, other than Berlin, has this to offer, Mozart’s “Magic Flute” in two large houses? In December there will be August Everding’s Eternity production again at the Bavarian State Opera (it’s now 45 years old), and now, almost as new as new, artistic director Josef Köpplinger’s take on the work, premiering at Gärtnerplatz will be celebrated on October 22nd.
There may now be a few objections to this. Köpplinger and “Magic Flute”, wasn’t there something? At the Semperoper, on November 1st, 2020? At that time, a shrinking version due to Corona premiered there, reduced from 180 to a non-stop 125 minutes in front of a significantly reduced audience. Omer Meir Wellber conducted and René Pape sang Sarastro. The Dresden native will now also be seen in the role at the Gärtnerplatztheater. A house debut for the star bass, who is a permanent guest at the Munich National Theater.
Since 1991, Pape, an ensemble member of the Berlin State Opera and a Bavarian and Austrian chamber singer, has had Sarastro in his repertoire, a role that helped him achieve international fame at the Salzburg Festival under the direction of Georg Solti. “In these holy halls, revenge is unknown.” So when the veteran Pape begins the famous hall aria at Gärtnerplatz, the 59-year-old performs in an entirely young ensemble on the premiere evening. Sophie Mitterhuber sings Pamina, Lucian Krasznec sings Tamino and Alina Wunderlin sings the Queen of the Night. In the other roles: Daniel Gutmann as Papageno, Julia Rumpflbaum as Papagena and Juan Carlos Falcón as Monostatos.
Prince Tamino (Matteo Ivan Rašić) has many challenges to overcome.
(Photo: Markus Tordik)
Actually, you just have to follow the music, says Josef Köpplinger and tells Mozart’s enigmatic work as a coming-of-age story. On his way to free Pamina from Sarastro’s clutches on behalf of the Queen of the Night, Tamino gets to know himself and the world anew. In terms of the concept and basic understanding of the work, the theater reports, the Munich production is “more or less the same” as that at the Semperoper. The artistic implementation, however, is different – especially through the collaboration with Momme Hinrichs, who delivers his own interpretation through his fusion of video projections and stage space and was not present at the Dresden production.
The audience is of course eagerly awaiting her revenge aria: Alina Wunderlin as “Queen of the Night”, here with Matteo Ivan Rašić as Tamino.
(Photo: Markus Tordik)
There will also be completely different costumes from Alfred Mayerhofer. “These in turn are part of the view of the characters and their classification, so here too it is an independent reinterpretation.” Rubén Dubrovsky as musical director and the ensemble would also contribute to the new development. “One can and must speak of a completely new production, with Josef Köpplinger naturally taking the opportunity to implement things that were made impossible in Dresden by the Corona measures in place at the time.”
In Dresden they will also be showing a Köpplinger “Magic Flute” on October 29th. If you would like to make a comparison, there are still tickets available here and there for the performances in the coming months.
The Magic Flute, A premiere Sunday, October 22nd, 6 p.m., B premiere Tuesday, October 24th, 7 p.m., tickets and information about further performances at www.gaertnerplatztheater.de