Search - Christian Boesch, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, James Levine :: Mozart: Die Zauberflöte

More than acceptable, especially at that price, and with alm

Discophage | France | 09/06/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This recording from 1980 followed the Salzburg production staged by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, premiered in the summer of 1978. It received good reviews back then and also upon its first CD reissue, in 1989.



Tappy is not the most elegant of Taminos. He certainly shows his mettle in the more heroic passages (with traces of strain), but his timbre is decidedly nasal and uningratiating and one feels that he is mettlesome only because he doesn't have the vocal resources to produce softness and silk, which is particularly amiss in some of the more tender passages, like "Dies Bildniss" or the flute aria in the first finale. Cotrubas has a voice of angelic purity as befits Pamina, but she shows slight traces of vocal frailty above the stave in her "Ach ich fühl's" aria and of insufficient vocal control in her final duet. Boesch is a good but not exceptional Papageno - the voice is fine but lacks a truly memorable character (and the somewhat opaque recording doesn't help) - but he is excellent in the ensembles, and still more than acceptable in his two arias; his "eins, zwei, drei" in the second finale (disc 3, track 11 at 2:48) is perfectly done - that is, very funny, with the last "piccolo" call whistled, and off-pitch at that. He is also very funny in the spoken dialogues, with an irresistible, "echt" Austrian accent. Elizabeth Kales acquits herself well of her not too demanding part of Papagena - both sung and spoken. Zdislawa Donat as the Queen of the Night is well honed and she sings her vocalises with ease (the high F in the first aria isn't perfect though), but her voice lacks muscle and heft and also thins out it the stratosphere, giving an impression of sweetness and frailty - hardly appropriate for the character. It is not Donat herself who says the spoken text, and the actress who does it is much more in (overbearing) character - but then the two voices and characters don't blend all that well. One also wonders who taught Pamina to speak - she doesn't have the same accent as her mother; she must have had a Rumanian wet-nurse.



Van Dam is a De Luxe Sprecher, solemn and full of kindness, with a silky voice. Kindness is not exactly what I hear in Martti Talvela's characterization of Sarastro, although his voice is more softer-grained than either himself a decade earlier (in Solti's first recording, Mozart: Magic Flute) or Kurt Moll's in Solti's second recording, Mozart - Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) (and again, the muffled recording doesn't help). But the way he sings the passage about Pamina's mother as a "proud woman" who is "in my power" in the first finale (disc 2, track 3 at 3:10) shows a terrifying hatred of women. The option is quite valid, I think: the misogyny of the Sarastro assembly is an inescapable and ever disturbing aspect of this opera, and so is its sectarian character - I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they had committed collective suicide after the opera has ended. And anyway, Talvela has those low notes, which is the only thing that really counts. His arias are suitably solemn. Horst Hiestermann as Monostatos is suitably nasty-sounding but in Act I the voice is wobbly; his Act II aria is perfect, though. The Two Armored Men are no big names but acquit themselves well of their duet. The Three Ladies are very good, individually fine, contrasted but still blending well together. But the three kids sound like, well, singers from the Tölzer Knabenchor: solemn, mature, not very childish. Try Christie if you want to hear REAL kids (and pitch-right, too).



Levine brings fine theatrical life to the whole process, but the sonic perspective is that of a big symphony orchestra, with significant reverberation; as a result, the orchestra sometimes lacks snap and sounds a bit heavy (try the intro to the first Queen of the Night Aria, track 8). As I already mentioned, the sonics are somewhat distant and opaque.



The spoken dialogues bore most music lovers - especially if they are not conversant with German - but the real Mozart aficionado revels in them. They are here given (almost) complete, much of it is heard for the first time, and for that reason alone this is a recording that any Flute lover should have in his collection. Tappy and Yakar have traces of a French accent and, as mentioned, Cotrubas of a Rumanian one (rolled Rs) but, for those who can appreciate these subtleties, Boesch, as I mentioned, has an irresistible Viennese accent (and so do the slaves on CD 1 track 11). The dialogues are nicely staged (listen on track 7 how First Dame whispers her line "ein mächtiger böser Dämon hat ihr entrissen" - "a powerful evil demon abducted her") but I find them at times a bit lazily delivered (the dialogue after Papageno's first aria lasts about 7:00 - a little too long, even I, a true aficionado, would say) - I can imagine a more snappy theatrical rhythm: what works on stage doesn't always work on disc, and some of it simply cries for the corresponding visual action. There are also plenty of sound effects, wind and the likes - and the lions' roars (disc 3, track 1) sound so artificial as to be laughable, really - but maybe that's how lions roar, I've never actually met one, except at the start of the MGM movies.



No libretto is provided, but a website is given from where an English translation can be downloaded. In sum, it is a better than acceptable representation of Zauberflöte, although there are better ones - but I doubt that you will find them at such ridiculously low prices as this one, even among the budget ones. Solti's second (mentioned above) and Christie's (Mozart - Die Zauberflöte / Mannion, Dessay, Blochwitz, Scharinger, Hagen, Les Art Florissants, Christie) are my present favorites, Solti's first is also excellent, despite a freakish Queen of the Night (see my review).

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