Opera Atelier’s fall offering this year is a remount of the Magic Flute in essentially the version that first appeared in 1991.  It’s sung in English and we got a preview in the RBA on Thursday.  It was basically a working rehearsal of the opera’s opening plus a few other scenes with Chris Bagan at the piano.

The opening scene, sans dragon, featured Colin Ainsworth in excellent voice as Tamino with Carla Huhtanen, Laura Pudwell and Danielle McMillan as the three ladies.  It was all very crisp and i think the sharp interplay between the ladies makes a good case for using the English version.  Douglas Williams appeared with “Birdcatching is my trade” and Colin was back with the Portrait Aria “O vision of enchanting grace” and the subsequent exchanges with the ladies followed by the Padlock Scene.

Eric da Silva and Juliet Sedgwick demonstrated the style that will be used for the dance components using moves from the dance that will accompany the Act 2 Entry of the Priests.  It’s not baroque (no heels) but it’s not yet moved completely away from social dance roots into the artificialities introduced later in the 19th century.

David Fallis gave a brief talk on the “classical orchestra”; valveless brass, wooden flutes and gut strings but also the new-fangled clarinet!  And finally, the Trial of Silence scene.

It al looks a lot like I remember it from previous iterations which is not a bad thing.  A not terribly philosophical Magic Flute, in English, with lots of eye candy is a pretty good intro to opera.  I’d certainly take quite young children to this as long as they had the attention span.  In fact, I did take my son to the abbreviated version for kids some thirty odd years ago!

Opera Atelier’s production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute plays at the Elgin Theatre from October 15th to 19th.

Photo credit: Chris Hutcheson