Cartoonish Sexism Is Great at the Opera

"The Magic Flute" is an unexpected, entertaining opening for the Portland Opera

By John Locanthi

An English version of Mozart's The Magic Flute with costume and set design by Maurice Sendak sounds like a culture jam designed to trick the youths into going to an opera. Yet it all comes together beautifully for the 2016 Portland Opera opener.

It's a tale as old as time. Prince Tamino (Shawn Mathey) travels to distant land to find a princess, Pamina (Maureen McKay). Prince meets bird-catching comic foil, Papageno (John Moore, channeling his inner Jim Carrey). The two run into a bunch of Egyptian Freemasons, who run the duo through a series of tests to win their respective ladies' hearts.

The English—sometimes intelligible, other times not—minimizes the distraction of looking up to read the subtitles. It also helps you understand that The Magic Flute is a silly, cartoonishly melodramatic story. Sendak's illustrations of the sets only enhance the cartoonish vibe.

While characters are dressed in the powdered wigs, pantaloons and voluminous dresses of the opera's 1791 time period and the opera's attitude towards gender is very much the same, there are nice modern flourishes. The spirits are exasperated by Papageno constantly screwing up his courtship. Female characters sigh and roll their eyes at the male characters—again, usually Papageno. There is something troubling about the only two characters wearing turbans also being the villains.

But you don't go to The Magic Flute for its contemporary gender politics. Or its story. Or its complex emotional relationships. You go to The Magic Flute to be entertained, and this performance does just that. Whether its Papageno tittering on his pan flute after saying he'd kill himself if his lady love did not return to him, or the Queen of the Night's virtuosic (and instantly recognizable) aria vowing revenge, this rendition of Mozart's work is nothing if not entertaining.

It is The Magic Flute made accessible, whimsical and above all, funny as hell.

GO: The Magic Flute is at the Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 7:30 pm Thursday, May 12, and Saturday, May 14. $28-$250.

The Magic Flute (courtesy of Tracy Wenckus)

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