Opera Wilmington gives first performance since pandemic with Mozart's 'The Magic Flute'

At the beginning of Ingmar Bergman's 1975 film version of Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute," we get a lot of information about what we're about to experience. One idea, in particular, is vitally important — the music and its universal appeal as captured in the diverse faces of the audience that Bergman makes part of the story.

Opera Wilmington will offer its own celebration of Mozart's most popular opera on Friday, July 22, with the first of four performances at the University of North Carolina Wilmington's Mainstage Theatre in the Cultural Arts Building (CAB), the culmination of more than two years of planning and hoping amid pandemic uncertainty.

After many Zoom meetings and Zoom fundraisers, company artistic director Nancy King, who is also the chair of UNCW's music department, appeared excited to talk about the production during a recent rehearsal break at the CAB. She mused about why "The Magic Flute" has held audiences for more than 230 years.

"My guess is because the themes are timeless. Striving to be better human beings — the whole Age of Enlightenment thing," King said. "Maybe some of those ideas don't feel like we would understand them today, but I think all of us really want humanity to be better."

Nature and harmony strike a balance with art and artifice in Mozart's "The Magic Flute" (Die Zauberflöte) in ways achieved in few other theater works. From the Enlightenment ideals of the 18th century — reason over superstition and respect for science, to name a couple — to the broad comedy of Vienna's working class.

"The Magic Flute" is, in some respects, a fairy tale.

"It's essentially about love and about attaining this enlightened state through love, and however you get to love is how you get to it," King said.

The story centers on Pamina, daughter of the Queen of the Night, who is abducted by the mysterious Sarastro. The Queen enlists Prince Tamino and her bird catcher, Papageno, in a plan to rescue her daughter.

"It's about good and evil and all that kind of stuff," King said. "So we have to have the hero and the bad guys and the people who help along the way. And the big plot twist is, who actually is the bad guy."

The Queen of the Night is one of the most iconic roles in all of opera, demanding vocal range and flexibility almost beyond comprehension. Soprano Diana Thompson-Brewer brings the majestic drama to Opera Wilmington.

"Different singers have different strengths," Thompson-Brewer said. "But for me, the precision and accuracy of … getting those pitches. And it's so quick. It's like singing 100 notes per second."

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Thompson-Brewer mentioned, too, that the Queen has a character arc that no other in the "Magic Flute" comes close to having.

"There is a real maternal aspect of Act I Queen," she said.

King, also the stage director for this production, has Thompson-Brewer leaning into the complexities of motherhood. The Queen shows protectiveness and the desperation of a parent losing a child to another adult with whom there is an irreconcilable conflict.

Thinking about the connection to her personal life, Thompson-Brewer said, "My daughter will try me, as I tried my parents, as most kids do. But there's nothing that she could ever do to make me not love her.

"But then my epiphany was, I don't think that's where Queen is. I think she's mad. And when we're mad, we say things, and we do things and we react. We're reactive."

Which brings us back to the brilliant vocal and dramatic display of the Queen's Act II aria.

In other roles, Shannon Kessler Dooley plays Pamina, Eric Rieger is Prince Tamino and John Dooley dresses out for Papageno, with Ramelle Brooks as Sarastro and former Miss North Carolina Elizabeth Stovall as Papagena.

The Queen of the Night's ladies-in-waiting are Constance Paolantonio, Jemeesa Yarborough and Martha Anderson. James Taylor plays Monostatos. Aaron Peisner is the chorus master, and Opera Wilmington music director Daniel Brier will conduct.

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Nancy King, turning a bit wistful, said that opera finds us where we are in life, from age 8 to 80.

"Mozart's tunes enchant," she said. "They get in your ear. And if you're a little person, then that probably is what you love the most, the tunes.

"And you know, some of the more sophisticated themes are maybe appealing to older people. But wherever you are in your life, you can experience this opera and be moved by it and (have) it make you laugh and cry and maybe be a little bit scared."

Contact StarNews arts and culture at 910-343-2343.

WANT TO GO?

What: Opera Wilmington presents Mozart's "The Magic Flute"

When: 7 p.m. July 22 and 29, 3 p.m. July 24 and 31

Where: Mainstage Theatre, UNCW Cultural Arts Building.

Tickets: $60 and $25, $5 for students and children 12 and under.

Details: 910-962-3500 or OperaWilmington.org

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Opera Wilmington stages timeless arias, themes of Mozart's Magic Flute