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Playfully Crossing through the Met
- PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art
- The MIT Press
- PAJ 81 (Volume 27, Number 3), September 2005
- pp. 140-145
- Review
- Additional Information
PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 27.3 (2005) 140-145
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Playfully Crossing through the Met
Babak Ebrahimian
Inherent in their definition, the clas-sics always contain a challenge: how can they be restaged in a new and fresh manner, without repeating their predecessors? After all, what makes a classic a "classic" is the fact that throughout the ages it has survived the "whips and scorns of time" from artists as well as audiences and critics alike. With so much at stake, how can classics be represented in the twenty-first century, at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City? A tough house, tough audiences, tough critics, and tough 9/11-struck city. Can they pass the challenge of being presented in a "new" and "innovative" manner or will they be presented conservatively, as a "universal story" that the audience knows well but now wishes to know and search in depth? In the worst case scenario, the staged production of the classic does neither and remains as a "museum piece," without insight, imagination, or innovation.
This season the Met brought to stage two productions that with much ease embraced the first two categories. They were, respectively, Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) directed by Julie Taymor and designed by George Tsypin, and Gounod's Faust, directed by Andrei Serban and designed by Santo Loquasto. In the first case—Mozart's The Magic Flute—the production was incredibly innovative, while in the second case—Gounod's Faust—although the story is a heavy tragedy, the production was staged with a subtle playfulness that gave it a fresh look and facelift.
To begin with, The Magic Flute. The production was exactly that: magic. The trio of Taymor-Tsypin and Mozart make a perfect team: they are three creative geniuses, with three different specialties, and when combined the result is mesmerizing. The story of the opera is a story of a chase and the trials of Prince Tamino and Princess Pamina in a magic world. In her "Director's Note" for the [End Page 140]
Click for larger view | Figure 1 Die Zauberflöte: Puppet theatre stage on the opera stage. Photo: Courtesy Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York. |
Click for larger view | Figure 2 Die Zauberflöte: Puppet theatre stage on the opera stage. Photo: Courtesy Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York. |
production program, Julie Taymor writes: "The challenge of staging this archetypical journey/quest is to bring to light the dimensions and layers of the characters and events so that it is not a generic 'fairy tale,' distanced and petrified, but rather a tale that moves us on a visceral and immediate level." To create such scenes, Taymor worked very closely with Tsypin to actualize a fairytale-like visual world which included a series of animated puppets for the various characters.
To put Mozart's opera in Tsypin's hands is like asking two child prodigies to make a sandcastle together. The world will rather quickly loose all limits and boundaries while the beautifully sculpted architectural forms emerge, move, and develop to the music before the audience's eyes. (Tsypin is originally an architect by training.) In Tsypin's vision, the stage is a space with unseen forms, dancing to Mozart's music. His set design, which largely echoed a triangular kaleidoscope, served the mise-en-scène as a perfect pyramidic vehicle for both outdoor as well as indoor scenes. Beyond being a sculptor/architect set designer, Tsypin is also very interested in movement and choreography; the set designer as a choreographer is visible throughout The Magic Flute as one sculpture moves and transforms itself into another, making room for the next scene while adding to the speed, change...
