I can't help but notice a trend in recent productions of The Magic Flute. Or at least in American productions marketed chiefly for families and newcomers to opera. That trend is to infuse the dialogue with a distinctly irreverent sense of humor. Modern references, pop culture references, cracks in the fourth wall, and generally cheeky jokes that are nowhere to be found in the original libretto. Even in otherwise "traditional" productions, these touches can be found. Usually they involve Papageno, but sometimes other characters too.
Here are some examples from productions I've either seen onstage myself or read about:
*Tamino's first words to Papageno are "What kind of odd duck are you?" and Papageno replies by calling him "boy toy."
*Tamino quips "Sounds like something out of a drag show!" at the first mention of the "star-flaming Queen."
*While laughing uproariously at Tamino's assumption that a mere mortal could see the Queen, Papageno imitates Woody Woodpecker's signature laugh.
*The dragon in the opening scene is referred to by all the characters as "this Chinese-inspired dragon," verbally winking at the fact that it's just an elegant puppet.
*Pamina is gagged as well as bound when Papageno first finds her, making her first attempts to talk to him unintelligible, until Papageno looks up at the supertitles overhead to "translate" her words.
*Pamina reacts with disgust to Papageno's body odor when he sits down next to her and implies that this is why he doesn't have a girlfriend yet.
*When Pamina says something naive, Papageno asks her "What opera are you in?"
*When Papageno tries to hide his fear at the start of the trials and pass off his shivers as "a slight fever," Tamino quips that maybe he has "bird flu."
*Papageno says "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me" when the Old Woman starts her flirting.
*The dragon in the opening scene is referred to by all the characters as "this Chinese-inspired dragon," verbally winking at the fact that it's just an elegant puppet.
*Pamina is gagged as well as bound when Papageno first finds her, making her first attempts to talk to him unintelligible, until Papageno looks up at the supertitles overhead to "translate" her words.
*Pamina reacts with disgust to Papageno's body odor when he sits down next to her and implies that this is why he doesn't have a girlfriend yet.
*When Pamina says something naive, Papageno asks her "What opera are you in?"
*When Papageno tries to hide his fear at the start of the trials and pass off his shivers as "a slight fever," Tamino quips that maybe he has "bird flu."
*Papageno says "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me" when the Old Woman starts her flirting.
*In the same scene (different production), instead of a drink, Papageno craves a ham sandwich with mayonnaise, and responds to an unwanted condiment by imitating the voice of Disney's Mad Hatter and exclaiming "Mustard?! Don't let's be silly!" Tamino then shows he's not so above earthly cravings by eating the rejected sandwich while Papageno chats with the Old Woman.
This trend is understandable, even if it does make some opera goers cringe. First of all, The Magic Flute was never meant to be a highbrow work. Unlike Italian opera, Singspiel was entertainment for the masses. So why shouldn't its humor be geared toward the masses of today? And the masses of today, especially children, are used to pop culture references, fourth wall jokes, and cheeky, irreverent humor in their family media. This has been the case ever since Robin Williams' turn as the Genie in Aladdin and even more so since Shrek. Straightforward fairy-tales are out of style. Besides, Mozart's own sense of humor could be notoriously lowbrow. Mightn't he have enjoyed these jokes just as much as any ten-year-old in the audience?
These irreverent touches aren't even exclusive to modern Magic Flute productions. Well I remember a mostly-traditional production of The Barber of Seville that added some literal toilet humor: Don Basilio made all his entrances from the privy, preceded by the anachronistic sound of a toilet flushing, and when Figaro made the mistake of hiding in that privy soon after Basilio left it, he reemerged gagging from the smell.
Still, I have to wonder: is it necessary? I fell in love with The Magic Flute at a very young age through Classical Kids' adaptation Mozart's Magic Fantasy: I don't remember how young, but I was still young enough to play with stuffed animals, because I remember acting out the story with them. Then I saw the opera onstage for the first time on my eleventh birthday. I was completely enthralled by it. And neither of those renditions of the opera had any pop culture references, fourth wall breaking, modern slang, or humor involving bathrooms or body odor! Must we really assume that young audiences will only enjoy opera, or only enjoy an old-fashioned fairy-tale, if they include those things? Is this really the only way to save opera from its stodgy reputation and fairy-tales from their saccharine reputation?
I'll admit that I've included two scenes in An Eternal Crown that includes some jokey allusions to other works, both involving Lorikeet, my female Papageno, character. First, in one early scene, she climbs a tree, only for a branch to break under her weight and send her plunging into a shallow pond below, in a decidedly un-poetic spoof of Ophelia's drowning in Hamlet. Later makes her suicide attempt, a few of her lines and a few lines in the narration parody famous Baroque and Classical music depictions of heartbroken women, such as Monteverdi's Lamento della ninfa, and still more allusions to Queen Gertrude's "Willow Speech" describing the death of Ophelia. But these particular allusions are obviously very different from quoting The Graduate or Alice in Wonderland.
Now and then I've thought of those irreverent modern touches in Flute productions and wondered if An Eternal Crown plays the story too straight. If it could use some of that irreverence to liven it up. Of course my readers will have to decide for themselves about that. Still, I think playing the fairy-tale straight is a risk worth taking. Audiences young and old have adored the opera for more than two centuries and adored it long before pop culture references and fourth wall jokes became a trend. As far as I'm concerned, with or without irreverent modern humor, the story, characters and atmosphere have all the staying power they need.
This trend is understandable, even if it does make some opera goers cringe. First of all, The Magic Flute was never meant to be a highbrow work. Unlike Italian opera, Singspiel was entertainment for the masses. So why shouldn't its humor be geared toward the masses of today? And the masses of today, especially children, are used to pop culture references, fourth wall jokes, and cheeky, irreverent humor in their family media. This has been the case ever since Robin Williams' turn as the Genie in Aladdin and even more so since Shrek. Straightforward fairy-tales are out of style. Besides, Mozart's own sense of humor could be notoriously lowbrow. Mightn't he have enjoyed these jokes just as much as any ten-year-old in the audience?
These irreverent touches aren't even exclusive to modern Magic Flute productions. Well I remember a mostly-traditional production of The Barber of Seville that added some literal toilet humor: Don Basilio made all his entrances from the privy, preceded by the anachronistic sound of a toilet flushing, and when Figaro made the mistake of hiding in that privy soon after Basilio left it, he reemerged gagging from the smell.
Still, I have to wonder: is it necessary? I fell in love with The Magic Flute at a very young age through Classical Kids' adaptation Mozart's Magic Fantasy: I don't remember how young, but I was still young enough to play with stuffed animals, because I remember acting out the story with them. Then I saw the opera onstage for the first time on my eleventh birthday. I was completely enthralled by it. And neither of those renditions of the opera had any pop culture references, fourth wall breaking, modern slang, or humor involving bathrooms or body odor! Must we really assume that young audiences will only enjoy opera, or only enjoy an old-fashioned fairy-tale, if they include those things? Is this really the only way to save opera from its stodgy reputation and fairy-tales from their saccharine reputation?
I'll admit that I've included two scenes in An Eternal Crown that includes some jokey allusions to other works, both involving Lorikeet, my female Papageno, character. First, in one early scene, she climbs a tree, only for a branch to break under her weight and send her plunging into a shallow pond below, in a decidedly un-poetic spoof of Ophelia's drowning in Hamlet. Later makes her suicide attempt, a few of her lines and a few lines in the narration parody famous Baroque and Classical music depictions of heartbroken women, such as Monteverdi's Lamento della ninfa, and still more allusions to Queen Gertrude's "Willow Speech" describing the death of Ophelia. But these particular allusions are obviously very different from quoting The Graduate or Alice in Wonderland.
Now and then I've thought of those irreverent modern touches in Flute productions and wondered if An Eternal Crown plays the story too straight. If it could use some of that irreverence to liven it up. Of course my readers will have to decide for themselves about that. Still, I think playing the fairy-tale straight is a risk worth taking. Audiences young and old have adored the opera for more than two centuries and adored it long before pop culture references and fourth wall jokes became a trend. As far as I'm concerned, with or without irreverent modern humor, the story, characters and atmosphere have all the staying power they need.
No comments:
Post a Comment