Cal Poly Student Opera Theater and Opera San Luis Obispo celebrate the second "Co-Opera" collaborative partnership in a full production of Mozart's The Magic Flute, according to Dr. Brian Asher Alhadeff, artistic and general director of Opera San Luis Obispo. Maestro Alhadeff notes that the "Co-Opera" pairs outstanding student singers from the Cal Poly Music Department in several lead roles side by side with internationally acclaimed opera singers.
Select student instrumental musicians perform with OperaSLO's professional orchestra, as well. Collaboration extends north to feature members of the Cuesta College North County Chorus under the direction of Cassandra Tarantino.
Three performances are scheduled for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, April 11, 12 and 13, at 7:30pm in the Spanos Theater on the Cal Poly campus.
Requiring a full orchestra with some specialized instruments, a chorus and a large number of solo roles, Maestro Alhadeff notes, "Magic Flute is perfectly suited to guaranteeing stage time for all Cal Poly Music Department voice emphasis music majors." New York and Los Angeles based professional singers Ben Gulley, April Amante, Benito Galindo and Jennie Litster and Cal Poly singers alternate performance nights.
Maestro Alhadeff observes that the newly established co-opera concept "promotes Cal Poly's Learn by Doing educational philosophy by partnering the professional resources and educational outreach of OperaSLO with the Cal Poly student opera program." The co-opera provides an outstanding use of community resources that give needed opportunity to emerging talented students from Cal Poly, according to Jacalyn Kreitzer, Director of the Cal Poly Student Opera Theater.
Dr. Alhadeff will serve as music director and conductor for the performances. Ms. Kreitzer will produce the opera and direct musical rehearsals, along with Paul Woodring, Music Department vocal coach, and Katharine Arthur, Music Department faculty member.
Artistic Director Emeritus of the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, Jack Shouse, is stage director. Cal Poly Theater Department major Gabrielle Koizumi is stage manager. Cuesta College North Country Chorus Director Cassandra Tarantino is chorus master. Costumes are provided by longtime OperaSLO costumer Cynthia Vest and Renee Leatham, with the assistance of Cal Poly alumna Laura Pryzgoda.
Tickets for the performances are $18 general, $16 seniors and $9 for students and are on sale at the Performing Arts Center ticket office 11am – 5pm on weekdays, and 10am – 2pm weekends. Patrons may also order online at PAC SLO, by telephone at SLO-ARTS (805 756-2787) or by fax (805 756-6088).
The performances are sponsored by Cal Poly's Music Department, the College of Liberal Arts and Instructionally Related Activities program, as well as OperaSLO and local donors.
The Opera
"Inventive, fantastic, charming and unique, with serpents, an evil queen, bird catchers, a beautiful lady in distress, priests, and spirits, all who triumph over evil with courage and wisdom" – that's how Jacalyn Kreitzer, director of the Cal Poly Opera Theater sums up the world created by Mozart's Magic Flute. One of Mozart's most beloved operas, it appeals on many levels. It is part fairy tale and part morality play, filled with both comedy and serious struggle.
In his catalog of his own works, Mozart listed Magic Flute as a German opera. It is a Singspiel, a special type of German opera, distinguished by its use of spoken dialog and its generally popular character. Such works were much in favor in the German speaking world of Mozart's day, especially among middle class and artisan patrons of musical theater.
The librettist of Magic Flute, the performer and theater director Emanuel Schikaneder, operated an opera company that produced many Singspiele. Like Magic Flute, many of them had "magic" elements, especially magical instruments that figured prominently in the plots. Typical characters were fanciful, exotic, or earthy types, and broad humor was stock in trade.
While Mozart's Magic Flute includes all these elements, it integrates them into a basically serious story which is essentially about the contest of good and evil, the two forces represented by the characters Sarastro and the Queen of the Night.
Sarastro is a sage who leads a sacred brotherhood devoted to reason, tolerance, compassion and love. He is an archetypal hero of the Enlightenment, a European cultural movement that dominated intellectual life in the 18th century.
The Queen of the Night is Sarastro's opposite. She rules the darkness, and is a character of irrationality and unrestrained, even violent, passions. She is enraged at Sarastro, who has taken her daughter Pamina away from her to live in the calmer, more reasonable environment of his realm.
The opera's hero Tamino is rescued from a large snake or dragon at the beginning of the opera, by Three Ladies in service to the Queen. Papageno the bird catcher enters, singing a jaunty song, and claims credit for saving Tamino. The Ladies punish Papageno for lying and then introduce Tamino to Pamina by means of a small portrait; he immediately falls in love. The Queen appears and declares him the one who will regain her daughter. In his state of ignorance and innocence, Tamino is afire with zeal to return the beautiful girl to her mother.
Act I contains most of the comic moments of the opera, while Act II is prevailingly serious, Papageno's antics notwithstanding. Here we meet Sarastro and his brotherhood. It is generally assumed that this brotherhood is modeled on the Masonic Order, a men's society to which both Mozart and Schikaneder belonged. Various plot and musical elements in Magic Flute are generally regarded as Masonic symbols.
Tamino is inspired by the ideals of Sarastro's brotherhood and seeks admission to its ranks. He (and Papageno) must undergo a series of trials to qualify for membership. Pamina likewise has her own trials: she and Tamino have fallen in love, but as part of his ordeal Tamino may not see her for a time, nor speak to her. His seeming rejection drives her to the point of suicide, but an intervention saves her. She and Tamino are reunited and undergo the last of the trials together. Sarastro blesses their union, and both are admitted to his society of reason, compassion and love.
Mozart constructed his opera with many symmetries of plot and characters. The six main characters act out their parts in three pairs: the noble lovers, Tamino and Pamina; the earthy lovers Papageno and Papagena; and the opposing embodiments of Good and Evil, Sarastro and the Queen of the Night. Among the minor characters are Three Ladies, Three Boys. Three priests, three instruments (the magic flute, Papageno's signature panpipes, and his magic instrument, a glockenspiel). All these "threes" are regarded as Masonic symbols.
The music of Magic Flute ranges from the simple, folk like songs of Papageno to the hyper-coloratura of the Queen of the Night. Sarastro's music is stately, as is appropriate to the dignity of his role. Tamino and Pamina have the most beautiful and genuinely affecting music in the opera.
In the end, Magic Flute is a very complex opera, integrating the comic and serious, the noble and the earthy, various styles of music and a plot laden with solemn symbolism. Yet it can be (and is) appreciated at all levels of its variety. Children love this opera, and so do seasoned opera fans. Our local opportunity to hear Magic Flute is not to be missed.
