OPERA REVIEW : Mozart Minus Magic

Contrary to popular misconception, Mozart’s “Die Zauberflote” is not a comic opera.

True, it does contain humorous elements, not to mention folksy diversions and flights of mysterious fantasy. Essentially, however, it is a serious, even lofty, essay on human conflicts between good and evil, lightness and darkness, wisdom and foolishness, innocence and corruption.

Predicated on ancient Masonic principles, not to mention stilted Masonic rituals, it remains a mystical allegory that, once in a while, evinces some awkward traces of 18th-Century sexism and racism. Still, in cumulative word and tone, it celebrates the attainment of maturity through enlightenment.

If you don’t believe me, listen to Mozart’s sublime music.

The lavish production introduced by the Music Center Opera on Thursday didn’t make listening an easy task, much less an easy pleasure. In this instance, the flute didn’t seem magical.

The Los Angeles “Zauberflote,” assembled by Peter Hemmings, was clever and clumsy, literally to a fault. With virtually every precious word of the German dialogue retained, for the benefit of a non-German audience fixated on distracting, distorted supertitles, it also was tedious to a fault. Under the circumstances, the performance ultimately resembled a 3 1/2-hour obstacle course and/or endurance contest.

The primary miscalculation would seem to involve the choice of designer. Gerald Scarfe makes very amusing quasi-satirical drawings. Anyone who has seen his deliciously vicious cartoons in British publications knows that, even though anyone who saw his miscalculated decors for “Orpheus in the Underworld” at the Music Center in 1989 may doubt it. For this lofty challenge, he created an awkward never-never land defined by a huge, movable and splitable pyramid. He decorated the scene with pseudo-Egyptian artifacts and inhabited it with wild caricatures.

Scarfe paints his protagonists as well as sets. The singers all have white faces and grotesque features. Ask not why.

He dresses his priestly choristers in Asian robes and hides their faces behind neutral masks. Ask not why.

The viewer can bask in the delirious colors, chuckle at the monstrous coiled snake that pretends to chase the tenor as the curtain rises, marvel at the comic-book menagerie that waddles onstage when Tamino first plays his magic flute. One can giggle at the ugly, rubber-bellied, crotch-grabbing ape that passes for Monostatos.

The sight gags are amusing, in their vulgar way, for a while. One soon realizes, however, that the designer is working against the music.

The violent colors often clash with Mozart’s pastels. The serpent is supposed to be scary, not funny. The animals of the forest should stimulate quiet smiles, not screams of laughter that obliterate an exquisite aria. Monostatos, the Moor, mustn’t resemble a green-faced gorilla-monster, especially in the politically-correct light of 1993.

Peter Hall, the rather literal-minded stage director, does what he can to sustain logic and order within the awkward visual milieu. He directs traffic deftly, though the treacherous steps of the all-too-pointed pyramid nearly defeat the brave cast. He tries to minimize the religious pomp and, when the ugly costumes and exaggerated makeup permit, he reinforces sympathetic character portraits. He understands the dynamics of the piece. Still, this is a losing battle.

The musical values aren’t particularly helpful. Randall Behr, the favored house-conductor, is a talented, hard-working, reliable, versatile man with a baton.

Since 1989, however, he has been entrusted with “Salome,” “Tosca,” “Where the Wild Things Are,” “Higgelty-Piggelty Pop!,” “Oklahoma!,” “Nixon in China,” “Orfeo ed Euridice,” “Cosi fan Tutte,” “Madama Butterfly,” “Don Giovanni,” “Il Barbiere di Siviglia,” “Carmen,” “La Traviata” and “Rigoletto.” His talent doesn’t justify that sort of exposure--it may even be unfair to him. On this delicate occasion, he demanded more forte than piano , dealt more in prose than in poetry.

The cast, like the maestro, adhered to solid routine. Mozart demands more.

Rodney Gilfry, undertaking the first Papageno of his promising career, found a nice balance between bird-like whimsy and big-boyish naivete, and sang the simple tunes with brusque bravado. Kurt Streit provided the useful contrast of poised, sweetly impassioned lyricism as his unfeathered friend.

Sanford Sylvan--Peter Sellars’ erstwhile Alfonso, Chou En-lai and Klinghoffer (remember “The Death of Klinghoffer”?)--sang the fleeting utterances of the Sprecher with the illumination of a sensitive Lied specialist.

The others proved somewhat less auspicious. Ann Panagulias’ radiant soprano tended toward flatness in ascending phrases, and toward explosiveness when serenity was most wanted (e.g. the great G-minor lament). Although she happens to be extraordinarily pretty, Scarfe managed to camouflage that fact.

Sumi Jo, for all her accuracy and coloratura facility, brought the peeping of a petulant finch to the furious arias of the Queen of the Night. She sounded forceful, courtesy of the busy microphones, only in the dialogues. Harry Peeters brushed over the noble utterances of Sarastro with bank-clerk stolidity and a reasonably solid, top-heavy basso.

Greg Fedderly did what he was told to do as the obnoxious Monostatos while articulating the text in some strange foreign tongue that hardly resembled Deutsch . Dale Franzen, like all Papagenas, piped coyly.

The Queen’s ladies-in-waiting (Jennifer Foster Smith, a mock-topless Paula Rasmussen and Wendy Hillhouse) brought relative suavity to their trios and mustered the only (contextually incongruous) cadenza of the evening. The three electronically amplified genii, who floated above the stage in a recalcitrant bird-boat, managed to sing timidly yet coarsely.

The director and designer, incidentally, did not join the cast at curtain-call time. A company spokeswoman said they missed their cue.

And now, onward to Feb. 27 and a Music Center family affair called “Rigoletto,” conducted by Placido Domingo and staged by his wife, Marta. . . .