by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Directed by Marshall Pynkoski
An Opera Atelier Production at the Elgin Theatre
November 8-9, 11-12, 14-15, 2008

   Opera Atelier’s production of Mozart’s Singspiel (part play, part song) comedy about the abduction and rescue of two maidens from a Turkish harem is an almost total sell-out to young audiences. Sung in German (with English surtitles) but with dialogue spoken in modernized English, the show is broad fun for those who don’t care about comic taste. Its pretty costumes by Margaret Lamb and floridly colourful sets by Gerard Gauci are less than meet the eye because the production doesn’t quite know how to make its Turkish setting and characters significant in a strikingly unorthodox way. Overly elaborate scene painting in the Oriental mode (heavily Persian) crowds the stage, almost overwhelming the eye with pictorial beauty, while the physical hi-jinks (in a bad Gilbert and Sullivan operetta mode) pretend to be commedia dell’arte, when it is depressingly clear that they produce low comedy without art. Mozart’s second opera (written when he was only 25) can be vulgar and sophisticated, sexually coarse but didactically benign. It certainly revels in comedy, but it is high comedy with touching pathos—not the low comedy and clumsy farce that bedevil this production where the ensemble frequently acts like runaways from The Pirates of Penzance, and where the lead actors haven’t a clue about comic style.

   The opening night audience was chockfull of university students, for whom this was their first professional opera. They thought the comedy was a lark, and they didn’t mind at all that Gustav Andreassen’s Osmin over-exercised his characteristic stance of hands-on-the-hips, both feet firmly set apart in a triangle to the floor, or that Amanda Pabyan’s Konstanze was never near the pathos of her role in any section and acted rather like a breathless, much too buxom ingénue rushing from one end of the stage to the other. The epitome of comic invention seemed to be the placard-carrying supernumeraries who announced scene changes with reversible, bilingual placards (Turkish and English), but these grew decreasingly funny with every repetition.

   It is impossible to overlook the gaffes in staging. As a director, Marshall Pynkoski can sometimes be appallingly clumsy. His idea of using stage space is to plonk two benches downstage at opposite ends and to manoeuvre the lead characters to them where they can sing to the audience. He indulges in excessive buffoonery about the Turks, and his production remains at the low end of comedy. As choreographer, Jeannette Lajeunesse-Zingg falls victim to the narrow and tight plane of baroque, giving her dancers little beyond a repertoire of repeated circular movements, stale ports de bras and leaps. At times, the ladies wield instruments that look like large forceps with which they pretend to intimidate Konstanze and Blondie (note the North Americanized name-change for the latter). It is as comic as the male dancers shaking their tambourines as they attempt to preserve baroque decorum.

   The opening night audience in general liked Pynkoski’s approach—though I saw patrons leave at the intermission. Certainly, I enjoyed the Tafelmusik orchestra and chamber choir (under David Fallis’ baton), and the principal singers in the tale were wonderful, though soprano Amanda Pabyan smudged some of her low notes as Konstanze (named after Mozart’s lover) and sounded shrill on higher ones in her Act One bel canto before warming up in the course of the evening. Carla Huhtanen’s well-sung Blondie was beautifully cunning and accented with Gilbert and Sullivan comedy, as well as being defiant and ultimately exultant. The women excelled in their musical interplays and especially in the intricate quartet sequence with their male counterparts. Norwegian bass Gustav Andreassen, though not much of an actor, was an exemplary Osmin, deep and thick in his notes, while Lawrence Wiliford’s Pedrillo took the acting honours, combining a sense of comic mischief with his lovely tenor sound. The true romantic highlight was Frederic Antoun’s Belmonte, with his handsome profile, lithe physicality, and impressive tone, especially in his arias. Curtis Sullivan’s Pasha was spoken throughout, and though not of the highest eloquence was sufficient to articulate the opera’s principal lesson about love conquering intolerance and xenophobia. However, for me the chief flaw in the production quite overwhelmed my listening pleasure: the cast’s inability to convey a credible sense of oppression, tyranny, and pain in the Turkish court. There never was a palpable conviction to Konstanze’s suffering, so one crucial part of Mozart’s equation was missing. I never felt any sorrow whatever, though I experienced some bliss in the singing.