Flat Flute

The Metropolitan Opera's new production of The Magic Flute was made possible (as the program duly notes) by a grant from Mrs. John D. Rockefeller Jr. She did not get her money's worth.

Most disappointing were the new sets and staging. The Flute's libretto, with its pseudo-Masonic mumbo jumbo and up to 16 bewildering scene changes, has always been a terror to stage craftsmen, but it also offers charm, humor, pageantry and plenty of cues for imagination, and these the Met missed. Scenic backgrounds were ingeniously provided by special 5,000-watt projectors, but most of the projections were hazy and dull (one, during the Queen of the Night's big aria, looked like a distorted Manhattan skyline). And despite the magic lights at his disposal, Scene Designer Harry Horner insisted on trundling in all the conventional heavy scenery; one notably ugly set, looking like a Stone Age apartment house, made more noise with its entrances and exits than the gods' offstage thunder.

The second disappointment was the all-American cast. For once, the Met stage was peopled by young, handsome, slender performers. But their Juilliard-type excellence somehow did not thrill. Baritone Theodor Uppman tried hardest and succeeded best as Papageno, the comical birdman; partly thanks to Ruth and Thomas Martin's competent translation, he put across his role with almost Broadway-like punch. Soprano Lucine Amara (Pamina) sang beautifully, and Roberta Peters (Queen of the Night) did her bell-like best despite a cold. But Tenor Brian Sullivan (Tamino) was dry-voiced and stiff-backed; Basso Jerome Hines, while he hit all of Sarastro's low notes, failed to be really moving. Not one of the slim, attractive Americans could match the musical excitement so often provided by the Met's derided, plumpish divas.

For all the youth on stage, the youngest-seeming performer was Conductor Bruno Walter, at 79 one of Mozart's finest interpreters. Whether ticking off tempos or sweeping the music along grandly, his pace was always near perfection.

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