{"id":645976,"date":"2025-12-21T09:26:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T09:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/645976\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T09:26:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T09:26:13","slug":"the-magic-flute-the-place-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/645976\/","title":{"rendered":"The Magic Flute \u2013 The Place, London"},"content":{"rendered":"

Music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Frank Moon<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director: Luca Silvestrini \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Magic Flute has one of the most complicated plots in the entire operatic repertoire. To get it down to 70 minutes and play it with just four performers is a triumph of ingenuity. Moreover, the pared-back storytelling by Protein Dance here is as clear as it could possibly be, so all those 5+ children in the audience know exactly what is going on. And the surtitles help to drive it home even more.<\/p>\n

In this version, it\u2019s dance theatre rather than opera, although there\u2019s a fair amount of spoken dialogue and singing. All of Mozart\u2019s main musical ideas are worked into Frank Moon\u2019s nicely played backing track, along with some newly composed atmospheric passages. These tend to sound more like Verdi, or even Puccini. That\u2019s bound to grate a bit on grown-ups familiar with The Magic Flute, but is unlikely to bother the target audience for whom this will probably come as an introduction to one of Mozart\u2019s best-loved operas.<\/p>\n

Nathan Bartman as Papageno introduces the show by addressing the audience in role and explaining what he longs for \u2013 a life partner. He chases birds, leaps, twists and does apparently impossible things with his legs. He is a splendid dancer but also a charismatic all-round performer. Jacob Lang as Tamino is less flamboyant, but there\u2019s a strong rapport between them. Donna Lennard \u2013 tall and imposing \u2013 does most of the singing and appears as The Queen of the Night, Sarastro, Papagena and, through clever puppetry, the Three Ladies. And Faith Prendergast as Pamina is a good actor as well as an attractive dancer, mostly in ballet mode.<\/p>\n

And of course, everyone multi-roles, which means a lot of costume changes as they become the spirits, animals and more. Some of these are clumsily managed. The show doesn\u2019t need a plot recap in the middle, for example. It\u2019s simply a device to accommodate Papageno doing a quick change while Tamino holds the fort out front, pointing at the shadows behind him.<\/p>\n

Generally, though, the use of upstage shadow narrative behind a big yellow sheet works pretty well, as do the swathes of gauzy material and speckled lights. Designer Dick Bird has excelled himself with costumes, too. Putting the spirits in tapered eau-de-nil tunics with big moon-like balloons is effective, for instance. And full marks for the monster at the beginning too \u2013 huge frightening head with the sinuous black body managed by two performers inside after the manner of a pantomime horse.<\/p>\n

Runs until 24 December 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n

\t\t\tThe Reviews Hub Star Rating <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t80%<\/p>\n

\t\t\tMozartian magic in miniature<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Frank Moon Director: Luca Silvestrini \u00a0 The Magic Flute has one of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,20905,198185,393,198186,198187,4884,198188,257,198189,150391,198190,16928,198191,6080,198192,149331,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-645976","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-dance","10":"tag-donna-lennard","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-faith-prendergast","13":"tag-frank-moon","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-jacob-lang","16":"tag-london","17":"tag-luca-silvestrini","18":"tag-mozart","19":"tag-nathan-bartman","20":"tag-opera","21":"tag-protein-dance","22":"tag-review","23":"tag-the-magic-flute","24":"tag-the-place","25":"tag-uk","26":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115756845287993860","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}