James Conlon turns to Mozart and magic for his L.A. Opera farewell

A tract of large changes, the Music Center has go farewell central. Alongside the Gustavo Dudamel hullabaloo astatine Walt Disney Concert Hall, James Conlon has begun his last appearances successful the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion arsenic euphony manager for 2 decades of Los Angeles Opera, with his ain signature signifier of enchantment successful Mozart’s “Magic Flute.”

The silent-movie panache of Barrie Kosky’s production, which opened Saturday nighttime astatine the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and runs done June 21, is connected its mode to becoming a perennial. This is the 3rd revival since L.A. Opera archetypal staged it successful 2013 — each 4 times with Conlon successful the pit. The accumulation operates similar an operatic graphic caller and unrecorded animated movie charmingly each successful one. The country is simply a elephantine movie surface breached up successful sections and upon which is projected witty, fantastical inheritance animation, portion the characters are the unrecorded singers, dressed arsenic though soundless movie stars.

The orchestra plays Mozart’s people arsenic though it were, arsenic orchestras did successful the aged days, accompanying a soundless movie but to radically antithetic effect. Fulgurous cinematic spectacle whitethorn immerse your attention, but the opera’s essence is transferred from the signifier to the pit. The singers, meanwhile, relation to an antithetic grade arsenic choreographed characters successful a cartoon, leaving small accidental for assemblage language, allowing, instead, idiosyncratic look astir exclusively to their voices.

In Mozart’s opera, Tamino, a prince successful a fairyland of mystic temples and mystifying gods, relies connected his supernatural flute that crook sorrow into joyousness to get him retired of jams. The genius of Kosky’s singularly philharmonic accumulation is that it magically makes the orchestra itself a compendious magic flute. It much than ever becomes an cause of delight.

That is wherever Conlon comes in. He has, portion starring L.A. Opera for 20 seasons (half the company’s existence), served arsenic an advocator for the halfway operatic repertory — notably Mozart, Verdi and Wagner — overmuch of it small heard successful our late-blooming erstwhile operatic desert. He has besides been an planetary champion of his “recovered voices” project, salvaging the neglected operas of composers successful the archetypal fractional of the 20th period who were silenced by Nazi Germany.

“The Magic Flute,” 1 of the world’s 2 oregon 3 astir fashionable operas, needs nary specified patronage. Written astatine the extremity of Mozart’s beingness arsenic a fashionable entertainment, its a singspiel, oregon sung play. As a proto-Broadway philharmonic operatic genre of spoken connection and philharmonic numbers, it appeals connected each levels. The fairy-tale libretto is child-friendly. Mozart’s people is tune heaven.

The troublesome Queen of the Night dazzles with precocious notes that sprout retired similar daggers. The main lovers, Tamino and Pamina, are lyrical wonders. The comical bird-catcher, Papageno, is everyone’s darling. The domineering Sarastro, an all-powerful priest, bellows spiritual profundities. But if you commencement digging nether the surface, deeper than the symbolic Freemasonry and all, you whitethorn ne'er find bottom.

The opera begins with 3 ceremonial chords successful the orchestra that awesome a brief, sober instauration rapidly undercut by an exhilarating fast-forwarding overture. Those 3 chords tin beryllium made to mean galore things. Often, they travel crossed arsenic commands by an orchestra to beryllium up consecutive and wage attention. They whitethorn beryllium dignified oregon downright quirky and playfully nary large deal, conscionable a here-we-go.

Conlon handles them arsenic a sweet, perfectly tuned, astir amorous invitation to pleasure, implying this volition beryllium a genial, gracious, laid-back “Flute.” Among his accomplishments successful L.A. has been to marque the opera’s orchestra susceptible of producing conscionable specified velvety, flowing Mozart, arsenic good arsenic terse, choky theater.

Here, Conlon offers a acquisition successful the benignant of enactment mostly lacking successful modern society, by simultaneously staying retired of the mode yet being astatine the indispensable halfway of things. Depth present is not announced, but the attraction of phrasing implies that determination is much to everything Mozart is saying than archetypal meets the ear, that, nether it all, the “Magic Flute” is not phantasy but a spiritual acquisition successful morality.

Many successful the cast, this revival, are young singers, not yet good known and caller to the company. Sydney Mancasola and Miles Mykkanen, arsenic Pamina and Tamino, are likable, lyric lovers. Kyle Miller catches Papageno’s susceptible charm. Aigul Khismatullina, Queen of the Night, impresses with the silvery pricks of her precocious notes, portion Kwangchul Youn’s Sarastro, unsteady successful mediate register, takes connected value astatine the bottommost of his bass. Zhengyi Bai’s lustful Monostatos, disguised successful the accumulation arsenic a hammy vampire, astir steals the amusement a clip oregon two. The Three Ladies and Three Spirits supply vocal allure.

One of the evening’s astir theatrical moments, though, came aft the euphony stopped erstwhile what sounded similar a weapon interrupted curtain calls. But arsenic if rescued by a magic flute, an instant of fearfulness turned to joy, glittery golden graffiti filling the Chandler and celebrating Conlon.