MOZART'S THE MAGIC FLUTE / Singapore Lyric Opera / Review

 

MOZART’S THE MAGIC FLUTE

Singapore Lyric Opera

Saturday (20 December 2025)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 23 December 2025 with the title "Well-rounded cast shines in SLO's The Magic Flute".

Singapore Lyric Opera’s pre-Christmas production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Magic Flute seemed awfully late in the year but it was worth the wait. Incidentally, it was with this opera that SLO, then known as Singapore Lyric Theatre, made its 1991 debut at the now-repurposed Kallang Theatre in a semi-staged production.

In the latest iteration, British stage director Harry Fehr opted for an update to the near present, with an ageing Brotherhood needing fresh blood in the form of the opera’s hero Tamino. This did little to disguise the whole enterprise as Freemasonry in all but name.

Emanuel Schikaneder (1751-1812), the German actor-playwright / librettist and original Papageno who commissioned the opera, and Mozart were freemasons themselves. The opera with its story of chivalry, bravery and rituals, and music of solemnity and pageantry, was a celebration of the secretive cult, then outlawed by the Habsburgs.

The set and lighting design by Dorothy Png, costume design by Gianti Giadi favoured mostly black and white with very little shades in between. The industrial-looking set, while austere and forbidding, deftly separated the cast as “upstairs and downstairs”, a dichotomy between powers-that-be and those whom they look down upon as they seek to manipulate and control.

Photo: Singapore Lyric Opera

While no outright Masonic symbols were visible, the symbolism provided by the clearly-displayed gears and cogs of machinery was obvious. The gulf between the men and women, attired in business suits and housemaid costumes, was as stark as the divides between authority and servility, senility (evident by an inordinate number of walking canes) and youth, good and evil, all evident in this clever production.

Tamino, Papageno
with the Three Ladies.
Photo: Singapore Lyric Opera

What about the singing and acting? Tamino played by Peruvian tenor Oscar Ruben Alarcon Ore was fresh and youthful, but the show was stolen by Korean soprano Renata Hann’s Pamina, who stood tallest as a paradigm of virtue and innocence. The comic relief was provided by Korean baritone Edward Kim as the bumbling bird-catcher Papageno, much later joined by British soprano Kezia Robson’s Papagena as his longed for partner.

Papageno & Papagena
Photo: Singapore Lyric Opera

Joyce Lee Tung's Queen was scary!
Photo: Singapore Lyric Opera

The Queen of the Night’s imperious coloratura was helmed by local soprano Joyce Lee Tung, who never disappointed in her portrayal of villainy opposite her geriatric nemesis Sarastro, ably sung by Austrian baritone Benedikt Berndonner. The smarmy Monostatos (Kee Chun Kiat) and the conniving Three Ladies (Cherie Tse, Lin Renyue and Rebecca Chellappah) completed the well-assembled main cast.

The story-telling took the form of singing in German and conversation in English, all made easier with effective surtitling in both English and Chinese. The SLO Chorus (Terrence Toh, chorusmaster) was its usually buzzing self, always aware and alive to the action. All this would come to nought if not for Mozart’s sparkling and life-affirming music, composed within his final year, performed with love and attention by the SLO Orchestra conducted by Joshua Tan.

This has been an extraordinarily productive year for SLO, with this and April’s very successful take on Bizet’s Carmen. Puccini’s Madama Butterfly has been projected for July next year. All eyes and ears point to a revitalised SLO to come.