OPERA REVIEW : Sendak’s Picturesque ‘Zauberflote’

The program magazine at the Civic Theatre on Saturday heralded Mozart’s “Magic Flute.” But the San Diego Opera presented no such thing.

For better or worse--probably worse--this was “Die Zauberflote.” It was performed with even more German dialogue than one normally encounters in American houses.

Ironically, there wasn’t a single German on the stage. There cannot have been many Germans out front. Most of the cast bumbled and stumbled through the long evening in what might just as well have been phonetic Dogpatch-Croatian while the audience followed inept supertitles. Responding to faulty cues, the dutiful readers constantly laughed in the wrong places.

At one significant point in the second act, David Malis--the affable, wide-eyed Papageno--lapsed purposely into a single English punch line. He earned an instant ovation for his effort.

It would have been sensible and, yes, unsnobbish, if the guardians of operatic virtue in San Diego had utilized a decent translation for the whole performance. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to think in terms of direct artistic communication.

They aren’t afraid of thinking in terms of old-fashioned hucksterism, however. Before the overture could begin, Ian Campbell, general director of the company, stepped before the curtain to deliver a shameless pitch to the sold-out house regarding ticket sales. He must consider his patrons yahoos.

When the curtain finally rose, a welcome aura of taste, even charm, descended. Chief credit for this belonged to Maurice Sendak, whose wily storybook sets had been borrowed from Houston.

Created in 1980 in conjunction with the director Frank Corsaro, the painted flats reduced the opera to a children’s fantasy about wild things. As such, the designs slighted the pathos, the heroism and the spirituality that Mozart and his librettist, Emanuel Schikaneder, fused with the obvious comedy.

Still, it was difficult to resist the fabulous flora and adorable fauna, the ever-inventive symbolism, the dark-edged cartoon whimsy and the clever mock-Egyptian accents of Sendak’s unkitschy illustrations. If only they could sing.

Among those who did sing in this not particularly mellifluous ensemble, Malis stole the show, as Papagenos usually do. He used his pliant, lightweight baritone with welcome finesse. Abandoning the cliche of the cutesy bird-man, he played Papageno as a happy fool, a bucolic everyboy who won his laughs with wit that stopped well short of buffoonery.

The remaining principals might have seemed less bland with a conductor who insisted on greater dynamic sensitivity or broader flexibility in phrasing. Karen Keltner seemed content to accompany the singers tactfully and to beat time briskly. In this opera, efficiency and accommodation aren’t enough.

Denes Gulyas offered a Hungarian-accented Tamino whose sweet lyric tenor tended to become harsh under pressure. Hei-Kyung Hong complemented him as a hard-toned, monochromatic Pamina.

Virginia Sublett, the unmenacing Queen of the Night, squeaked out her top Fs with a slender soprano more appropriate for Papagena--a role deftly dispatched here by Sylvia Wen. At the opposite end of the scale, Kenneth Cox snarled gruffly as a Sarastro demoted from high priest to Masonic boss.

Best of the supporting players was Anthony Laciura, a mildly mean Monostatos who executed some nifty disco-aerobics when he heard the silver bells. Herbert Eckhoff, a reasonably dignified baritonal Speaker, was given more to speak than tradition dictates.

The trio of attendants to the Queen (Joan Gibbons, Gale Fuller and Deidra Palmour) blended competently. However, one had to regret Campbell’s decision to send in three additional women to do what should be boys’ work as the Genii.

Confronting hand-me-down decors as well as a prefabricated dramatic concept, Wolfgang Weber moved the characters and motivated the action with informed restraint. He told the story clearly, without pomp, gimmicky or undue ritual.

The director could not be held responsible, of course, for the revisionism of the supertitles, borrowed from San Francisco. The text on the proscenium screen was sanitized when Papageno made his racist remark about the moor, Monostatos. The words disappeared altogether when the Speaker uttered his sexist pejoratives about the reliability of women.

So much for truth in translation.