The Magic Flute

I have survived my second foray in the world of Opera. Not only did I survive, but I rather enjoyed it. Last night I went to see Mozart's The Magic Flute at Capitol Theatre in Salt Lake City. I was rather surprised at how funny it was. I was also surprised how pretty German can be when it is sung rather than spoken. The Queen of the Night in particular had an incredible voice.

Speaking of sung languages versus spoken ones, I was a little disappointed that all of the spoken parts in the opera were actually in English. It was a little disorienting for the dialogue to be in English and all of the songs in German. Even though I don't understand a lick of German, it feels like it is betraying the original material to have the spoken parts in English.

I suspect that the English dialogue was not the only way in which the opera had been 'modernized'. There were a number of comedic references in the opera which, although they could have just been coincidental, seemed to be referencing some modern themes. For instance, at one point in the opera Papageno has just found Parmina (sp?) but is separated from her by a great enough distance that they are having trouble hearing each other. So, Papageno pulls two cans connected by a string out of his knapsack and throws one end to Parmina. Once Parmina has her end of the device firmly planted against her ear, Papageno asks, "Can you hear me now?"

I know this is a little juvenile but I was amused at the title of the opera. For some reason it kept reminding me of "American Pie". Every time I heard the phrase "Magic Flute", this line kept popping into my head: "This one time, at band camp...". Now that's a magical flute :)

See, that's what I love about me: I'm cultured enough to go to the opera, but white trash enough to compare it to "American Pie".