Comment on this story What: The Magic Flute When: Friday, Oct. 29, 8 p.m. and Sunday, Oct. 31, 2:30 p.m. Where: Knoxville Civic Auditorium Cost: $75-$17. Call 524-0795 for tickets and info.

Knoxville Opera polishes Mozart’s Flute

by Paige M. Travis

As familiar as he is with Mozart’s work and The Magic Flute in particular, Francis Graffeo still endeavors with some effort to explain to an audience why the opera is still revered 200 years after its debut. “It’s impossible to tell exactly why,” says the conductor and general director of the Knoxville Opera, but he gives it his best shot: “Mozart’s music communicates to people in a way that other composers don’t,” he says, including the heavy-hitters of Beethoven, Haydn and Bach in that list of others.

In the context of opera, Mozart was a master of the opera perhaps because he spent most of his life working on that form. Supporting Graffeo’s belief that Mozart was a genius is the fact that he composed almost completely in his head; his manuscripts contain no corrections. But even this example of perfection doesn’t keep Graffeo from deconstructing the composer’s work.

“I enjoy tearing apart Mozart’s music,” he says with the relish of a young boy examining the inner workings of a transistor radio. And the music holds up to such critique; the many layers of instruments, structure and theme give way to complex connections. The Magic Flute, Mozart’s final opera, is no exception.

The Knoxville Opera’s season opener marks several firsts for the company and its participants. The production features all-new sets designed by first-time set designer Richard Jolley. A Knoxville-based glass artist who is known worldwide for his whimsical, vibrantly colored sculptures, Jolley was approached by Graffeo to bring his eye for the fantastic to Mozart’s fairy tale.

“I knew that a glass artist had had success with set design many years ago,” Graffeo says in reference to Dale Chihuly’s design for Debussy’s Pelleas and Milisande for Seattle’s opera company. That company’s director, Speight Jenkins, advised Graffeo to “just turn him loose” on the design and see what Jolley came up with.

With a few considerations made for the Opera’s budget—and some additional contributions to said budget made by some friends and fans of the artist—Jolley has designed a set of props and backdrops that are excitingly unique advancements for both the artist and Mozart’s work. Jolley’s take on the ancient Egyptian setting manifests in human and animal figures formed in translucent light-conducting Plexiglas, a giant yellow moon and tree trunks of silver mylar.

The story of The Magic Flute is a fantasy tale that exists outside of a specific time. Prince Tamino falls in love via a locket portrait with Princess Pamina and, without ever meeting her, embarks on an adventure to rescue her from the evil Sarastro. In classic fairy-tale fashion, Tamino must hazard foes and tests of bravery in order to reach his beloved. He faces the challenges of Three Ladies and three philosopher spirits, receives three magical gifts, and must chose between three doors.

Graffeo explains that much of the opera’s imagery and symbolism was inspired by Mozart’s designation as a Freemason and that group’s belief in numerology. A proliferation of threes and sevens appears in the opera’s score with repeating chords, themes and choruses.

While Mozart’s previous operas had been funded by various royal commissions, The Magic Flute was a collaboration with Emmanuel Schikaneder, a for-profit entrepreneur who wanted to make the era’s version of a blockbuster and knew his pal Amadeus would be just the guy for the job. The royals and upper-class citizens who populated opera audiences at the time preferred their operas in Italian, but Mozart, wanting his story and music to reach a wider, more working-class audience, wrote The Magic Flute in German.

Graffeo speculates that Mozart would be happy to know that The Magic Flute has received an English makeover by Andrew Porter. While some opera fans may miss the lush Italian text of most operas of the period (or even the Flute’s original German), others may be relieved to be able to follow the story without reading projected subtitles. What remains in the translation is the beauty of the songs; the music tells the story of each character’s emotion: Tamino’s determination to find true love; the bird catcher’s joyful pursuit of a mate of his own; and Pamina’s mother, the Queen of the Night, who starts out sweet and turns out wicked.

As the Queen, Carter is the star that most threatens to outshine Jolley’s set. Carter performed the part at New York’s Metropolitan Opera and received a much-coveted standing ovation. Mozart’s score sets up a difficult course of vocal feats for the Queen, and all reports say Carter knocks down the role’s every challenge.

Thirty-seven days after The Magic Flute premiered in 1791, Mozart died, unable to know exactly how well his fellow Germans received his fanciful fairy tale or how, 213 years later, what a magical hold it would still have on audiences. The Knoxville Opera’s season-launching production—a spectacle if there ever was one—honors that tradition.

October 28, 2004 • Vol 14, No. 44 © 2004 Metro Pulse