ARCHETYPES IN THE BIG TOP
Mozart’s "Die Zauberflöte" in the Felsenreitschule
The world as an earthly and cosmic circus: restless people in the arena, children constantly fidgeting, strict father and dominant mother as authoritarian figures hopelessly fighting against one another in the big top. In between, fantastic animals as graceful silhouettes, a censorious priesthood prancing around Sarastro, Monostatos’s slaves in lumin- ous knickerbockers – props become mythical bearers of meaning. And in addition, ultimately no longer quite at the forefront of attention: Mozart’s multi-layered and simple music. This is Die Zauberflöte in the staging by Achim Freyer, painter, stage director, set and costume designer, interpreter of myths and magician of world theatre.
Achim Freyer’s Hallmark
Achim Freyer tells the story of the piece in his own way: “A young man / searching for knowledge / discovers love along the winding paths of the night. With the help of a magic flute / he arrives at the gates of nature, reason and wisdom / and follows dangerous, testing paths / which his travelling companion abandons in favour of simple happiness. / The young man, however, walks through fire and water with his beloved / to perceive the shrine of the greatest light.”
Secrets in the circus
The artist Achim Freyer adopts irony as his stylistic means. He locates the secrets in the circus. And he has no intention of being satisfied with the sublime, artistically stylised natural backdrop of the Felsenreitschule but completely conceals it with his scenery and objects. The venue is therefore a circus of artificiality, of naivety acted in a sophisticated way. These elements are combined in the first act when the characters become entwined with their magical instruments. Prince Tamino and Papageno are allowed to be human, the three ladies from the sombre world of the queen are shown to be monstrously blown up. Initially when the Queen of the Night drags herself in, she appears unhappy but during her first aria she is slowly transformed into the goddess of revenge, becoming larger and larger like a puppet and rising up to the top of the circus tent until at the end she is engulfed by her fiery costume. Later she delivers the aria of revenge from the great crescent moon. Sarastro is seen as being only slightly human and is a very strange figure who wanders around in changing perspectives and formats.
Between comedy and seriousness
Using the allegory of the circus Freyer touches the nerve of the play of ideas in Die Zauberflöte: the difficult double principle of the fairy-tale characterisation as well as the folkloric humanisation of the persons in the action. Tamino and Pamina, the Queen of the Night and Sarastro, Papageno and Monostatos, they are equally amusing favourites for children or appear as heroically transported authorities, jumping or parading around freely and at the same time bound to mysterious ropes. Freyer portrays the entire extent of the piece between clownery and fairy-tale, folklore and ethics of the Enlightenment, buffa and seria.
Dramatic concept of images and signs
And in so doing he risks a great deal when he boldly intervenes in the piece: during the overture we already see the exposition of the circus routine – arias and ensembles in the opera are again and again called up by drum rolls, sound signals and lighting spots – just like circus numbers. Freyer’s picturesquely powerful and at the same time highly intellectual speculation reveals to the audience the world of Mozart’s multi-layeredness, intensity of ideas and sensuality, but in so doing he does not quite manage to defend the simplicity of Mozart’s magnificent music which smoothes over all the cracks created by Schikaneder. In such a complex and virtuoso interpretation of the piece, in which neither scenery nor machines are spared, the music remains the most difficult of all, the true mystery.
Wolfgang Schreiber
This article appeared in an unedited version on 1 August 1997 in the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Monika Rittershaus, The portrait
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Die Zauberflöte
Sung in German
Conductor Bertrand de Billy
Stage director, sets, costumes and figures
Achim Freyer
Lighting design Kurt-Rüdiger Wogatzke
Chorus master Rupert Huber
Sarastro Alfred Reiter (29. 7. - 9. 8.)
René
Pape (11. 8. - 27. 8.)
Tamino Rainer Trost
Sprecher Wolfgang Schöne
1. Priester Dietmar Kerschbaum
2. Priester Markus Eiche
Königin der Nacht Diana Damrau
Pamina Barbara Bonney
Erste Dame Anja Harteros
Zweite Dame Katharina Kammerloher
Dritte Dame Katherine Goeldner
Papageno Simon Keenlyside
Papagena Martina Jankova
Monostatos Robert Wörle
Erster Geharnischter Torsten Kerl
Zweiter Geharnischter Dan Dumitrescu
Drei Knaben
Soloists of the Tölzer Boys Choir
Vienna Philharmonic
Concert Association of the Vienna
State Opera Chorus
Felsenreitschule
Revival: 29 July 2002,
1, 3, 5, 9, 11, 13, 17, 21, 25, (3 p.m) July 2002,
27 (3 p.m.) August 2002
Performances start at 6.30 p.m.
unless otherwise stated
Tickets are available from
the Festival Ticket Office
on 1, 5, 13, 25 and 27 August for € 270 and € 340
on 1 August also for € 135 and € 205
on 25 and 27 August for € 205.
Telephone: 0043 662 8045-500
Telefax: 0043 662 8045-555
E-mail: info@salzburgfestival.at