Die Zauberflöte Singapore Lyric Opera 23 July, 8pm Esplanade Theatre
I went to watch the Singapore Lyric Opera's Die Zauberflöte on friday, and since I will have to write a report on it, I might as well start by writing a short review.
I will have to say that it's the best SLO production I've watched so far. Which might not be saying very much. But still, I enjoyed myself, and it had some very pleasant moments.
Let's start with the overall presentation.
I already had problems with the concept of the whole performance. It was going to be sung in German, spoken dialogue in English, and as you can see from the poster, the costumes are of an Indonesian theme. Or Thai, I can't tell.
I'll give them points for trying to be creative. The entire backdrop is comprised of this confused Asian mashup. The Temple of Enlightenment is shown by 3 huge boulders with the words 理.人性.智. (reason, humanity and knowledge) on them. The keeper of the Temple holds an urn with joss sticks burning in it. When the backdrop was revealed, it drew some tittering from the crowd. It looked like a scene from a wuxia hack writer. Maybe that's why the illuminati hasn't taken root in Asia.
The Queen of the Night and Tamino were dressed in costumes worn by the royalty in Indonesia. Pamina was wearing a white gown that probably had no relation to the Asian theme. The Chorus was made up of men and women dressed in sarongs (for clearer illustration, look at the thai palace slaves' costumes in the movie Anna and the King). The three genii (all played by girls, since there weren't many boys in Singapore who could sing high pitches) looked like Nezha, with large flowers sticking out from them on either side. Monostatos looked like a cross between a parrot, an aborigine witch doctor and a baboon. The guardians of the temple looked like red indians. They even had the feathers around their head. It's hard to screw Papageno and Papagena up.
It was just... confused. I don't like this orientalism shit.
Anyway that aside, I was there for the music.
The orchestra played quite neatly, with all the running notes (it's Mozart!), but it was also weak. The overture was already pretty indicative that they were unable to 'rise to the occasion'. The loud bits sounded thin and at half the volume that it should have been. But on the whole I thought it was pretty alright.
Tamino (Kota Murakami) was unremarkable, considering he was a 'foreign talent'. He sang very uninspiringly, though there were no major slipups. My brain went to sleep whenever he sang.
Pamina (Nancy Yuen) was great as usual. She's always my favourite. Her tone and colouring is always golden and mellow. Probably one of the only few things worth listening to in SLO. I particularly liked her delivery of "Ach, ich fühl's, es ist verschwunden", it was very delicately done.
Papageno (Song Kee Chang) delivered his part very well too. He has a strong voice and good acting skills. He was a very amusing Papageno! "Bei Männern" (a duet between him and Pamina) was one of the treats of the night.
The three genii were also verging on going completely off key at points. But since they're children, I wasn't holding my breath.
The rest of the cast was unmemorable.
I've reserved the last bit of the review for the Queen of the Night. This will now dissolve into a rant. I've long wondered what the hell's the point of inviting foreign talent in to perform if they can't. We're better off sticking with Singaporean talent without spending that money.
The Queen of the Night (Tai Hsiao Chun) was an utter joke, from the start to the end. Her first appearance in "O zittre nicht" was so screamingly bad (literally and figuratively), off key and unsteady. At several points it sounded like the orchestra was driving her, rather than the other way around. Whenever she sang, her body shook left and right, which made her look like she was made of putty, or like she was drunk. The transition between her being a sad, mourning mother to her jubilant 'Eureka!' moment was so badly thought out that it just all sounded contrived and mechanical. And did I mention bad singing?
She was so much of a joke that I was hunched up in my seat trying to muffle my laughter. It didn't help that Gabriel had already slumped forward burying his face in his hands next to me.
I've been listening to this ever since Friday to get over the shock of paying $58 for horrific screeching like that. I was also very embarrassed because there were many foreigners sitting in the audience, and this would be utter rubbish to them.
"O Holle Rache" was a bit better. I was actually surprised she could hit the high Fs without slipping up. But maybe she just mugged that nonstop when she was learning the aria. But on the whole, she's just not a good performer.
After the performance, I went to do some online searches on her.
"Taiwanese Tai Hsiao Chun, who also calls herself “Queen Night Tai”, recently sang a lovely Lucia and then the Queen of the Night in January 2010. The Queen of the Night seems to her most performed signature role, so do take the opportunity to catch her live."
If that standard of performance lets her think that she can get away with calling herself 'Queen Night Tai', then Dessay, Damrau, Popp must be the Supreme Empresses of the Galaxy. She must be absolute rubbish at everything else that she sings if that's her best role.
From Instant Encore: "Now we know that the SLO hasn’t had the best of luck finding coloratura sopranos (Tales of Hoffmann anyone?)". HURHUR, the memories are flooding me now. It's hard to decide if Zhao Yun Hong's Olympia or Tai Hsiao Chun's Die Konigin is worse.
The moment the curtain call began, there was an exodus of foreigners from the audience. The rows in front of me became completely empty. And who could blame them.
Moral of the story, SLO should stop importing from PRC and start looking to Japan or Korea if they really want to import some decent singers.
But aside from the Queen of the Night, the three genii, and the lacklustre orchetra, it was pretty good for SLO. Gabriel pointed out that it probably had something to do with having an angmoh director (Justin Way) rather than a Singaporean one.
G: "Directed by Justin Way and conducted by Alice Farnham, both working at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London.
there go their reputations" Just to show that it's not just opening night nerves that's plaguing the production, I've here other comments from the interwebs from the following day's (Saturday) performance:
"Queen of the Night fail. Chorus all wearing sarong wraps - clearly they had a tiny costume budget. Very confused-Asian setting, tacky!
Queen of the Night sort of redeemed herself in Act II, her high Fs were passable, but everything was underpowered, an unregal squeaking.
Obviously they couldn't find 3 boy trebles, since the 3 boys are played by 3 girls dressed as refugees from a racial harmony day float.
Orchestra played like they hadn't been fed, all limp and spineless. No surprise they sounded un-ballsy, the conductor was female.
That Gin & Tonic at intermission was not enough to help me through the second half!"
