MUSIC
THE performance of the Magic Flute at Covent Garden on January 6th was the first to be given under Kleiber, and there were some small changes in the production as well as new singers in the cast. I had the impression of a more intimate, light-hearted conception of the work than Dr. Rankl has given us ; and this was shown in Kleiber's rather faster tempi and lighter handling of the choruses and accentuated by Peter Pears's style of singing Tamino's music, which for good and evil—in the perfection of its phrase and the smallness of the tone employed—suggested chamber-music rather than opera. Uta Grars Pamina lacked nobility and pathos in the earlier scenes (she even threw away "Die Wahrheit ! Die Wahr- heit ! " perhaps in disgust at having to sing "The truth, friend ! "), but in her meeting with Tamino before the trial by fire and water she sang with feeling, and the purity of her tone, at other times sophisticated by a certain unsteadiness, was most telling dramatically. The Queen of the Night was a Chilean, Rayen Quitral, who sang in very guttural German. Hers is not a beautiful voice, but it indubitably includes the requisite notes high among the leger-lines, which she can produce with accuracy and considerable agility, though without giving great pleasure to the listener. Faced with Marian Nowakowski's Sarastro, now shorn of his magnificent robes and dressed like his brother priests, I for the first time questioned this pontiff's right to our sympathy and respect. Even the worst singers generally manage to invest the role with a certain episcopal benignity and win our regard for those sentiments of forgiveness and toleration which—though we hardly notice it—are noticeably absent from his dealings with the Queen of the Night. Mr. Nowa- kowski, who is far from being a bad singer, presented so morose and jaundiced an appearance and radiated so little warmth and benevo- lence that I found myself wondering by what tight he had removed Pamina from her mother, except the arbitrary " right " of some monstrous Local Authority to interfere in private relationships. For all that we see, the_tyranny and the unforgiveness is all on Sarastro's side, not the Queen's. That he stole Pamina "for her own good" —that is the same plea advanced by the Bulgarian or Jugoslav Communists who kidnap Greek children ; and Pamina was neither a child nor willing to leave her mother. No, Sarastro's only defence must be that the end justified the means ; and this was a doctrine surely attributed by Freemasonry (whom we are told Sarastro represents) to the extremists of the party supporting Maria Theresa, Queen of the Night.
One can argue till doomsday about the Magic Flute ; but it is much better to listen to Mozart's music. And to enjoy, in this particular performance, the excellent Papageno of Jess Walters. He is a singer whom, I confess, I have never heard quite come off in any other part. And it may be simply that he is a natural comic singer and has so far found himself too often buttoned up in the stock of Germont pore or forced to act the silly Bohemian. What- ever the reason, Mr. Walters's Papageno now has a complete naturalness, he times and moderates his comic asides most effectively and his trolling of the pastiche Viennese street-songs which Mozart wrote for the part combines art and nature to perfection. If only he could be relieved of his ridiculous tail ! Restore to Sarastro his (probably incorrect Egyptologically) gorgeous mantle and dock Papageno--these modifications would, I believe, have a happier effect than bringing the Three Genii right into the forefront of the stage where they look a little too solidly everyday. And if Oliver Messcl's highly decorative sets and clothes are to be modified, Tamino should surely knock at the doors of the three temples ; and must the ladies of the chorus continue to support pots of
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