Designs Suit Whimsy of ‘Magic Flute’

San Diego Opera has the motto “We Make Music Worth Seeing,” and the audience for its new production of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” which opened the season Saturday night, took the company at its word. One good look at the delightfully dressed minor stage figures--a flashy and adorable rhinoceros or a couple of metallic, glittering temple guards balanced on enormous platform shoes--in the revealing light of the curtain calls, and the applause was as vigorous as it was for those who sang. The standing ovation was reserved for the appearance of the costume designer.

And that was exactly what the company encouraged. The musical performance had its strong and weak points, but San Diego Opera drew special attention to the fact that it had lured, as the evening’s name brand, a celebrity fashion designer, Zandra Rhodes, to the lyric stage for the first time. She was promoted as the symbol of the production. On opening night, many ushers paid tribute to the British designer’s trademark brightly colored hair. Pink feathered boas were handed to the ladies, pink feathered pocket squares to the men. Then, just before the curtain went up, the Civic Theatre was illuminated and the pink-fringed audience had its picture taken.

Stage needs are different from those of the runway or the pages of Vogue. Opera singers are not models. Some singers may be able to pull off modern fashion, but as Los Angeles Opera’s “Rigoletto” last year proved, it only takes a few who are too stocky for Armani to make the whole stage look fake and foolish. The other problem is that the details that make clothes individual don’t readily show in stage lighting.

Rhodes does a reasonably good job of avoiding both pitfalls. She is a whimsical designer, and “The Magic Flute” is a fanciful opera. And her caprice suits the production by Michael Hampe, who also co-designed the sets with Alberto Andreis. Hampe handsomely frames the stage with a starry sky and signs of the zodiac. Rhodes supplies bright colors along with her great variety of textures, although her designs didn’t break new conceptual ground.

The well-feathered Papageno resembles the birds he catches (as Papagenos often do). The diaphanous layers of Pamina’s chimerical outfit catch the light in interesting ways, a nice touch for a transparent character who is in the process of finding herself. Tamino, the prince, is dapper in his blue velvet. Priests are flamboyantly robed: Sarastro gets a bold feather headdress, and the animals are special. The lions look like emblems come to life.

Hampe works a few wonders of his own. The trial by fire and water--ascending red patterns and descending blue ones--is stately and beautiful. The Queen of the Night enters in a sphere in the sky, stopping the show before uttering a sound. But when Yan-Guang Cui does utter her first sounds, it is disappointing. Glued as she is to her star high above stage and higher still above the orchestra in its sunken pit, she gives the impression of singing from very far away. She is acoustically remote and dramatically constrained for what is one of the most spectacular coloratura arias in the repertory, and she sounds it. But when allowed on the stage in the second act, she is focused and impressive.

Johannes Mannov, a Danish baritone making his American debut, is a graceful Papageno, a likable comic with a warm, refined baritone perfectly scaled for Mozart. Jennifer Casey Cabot, on the other hand, brings fuller voice, with attractive bloom, to Pamina’s music but does little with her character. John Osborn is the stiff Tamino, his tenor is not large but is secure. Kevin Langan, Sarastro, is a bass whose voice is large but not secure. Peter Blanchet is a more buffoonish Monostatos than a threatening one (the character can be both). Annelies Chapman is the chirpy Papagena. Suzanna Guzman is but the Third Lady (after Barbara Divis and Priti Gandhi) but she is second in the entire cast to Mannov in stage presence.

These are singers who are young but otherwise unalike in temperament or in voice. And John Fiore’s heavy conducting does little to unify sound, help ensemble or promote theater. The orchestra needs improvement; sour brass and rhythmic imprecision diminish Mozart. The chorus was better. Perhaps if the musicians could be moved closer to the spotlight and given something interesting to wear, they might play as if they, too, take pleasure in the show.

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* “The Magic Flute” repeats Tuesday at 7 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m. and Jan. 31 at 7 p.m., $33-$92, Civic Theatre, 202 C. St., San Diego, (619) 232-7636.