Eddie Pensier writes:

Kenneth Branagh’s film of Mozart’s opera is the first filmed directly for the screen (Ingmar Bergman’s classic version was initially made for Swedish TV). Branagh made several decisions as a filmmaker that would drastically affect the outcome of his project: He commissioned a new English translation of the libretto by actor/writer/polymath Stephen Fry; he decided to cast actual singers in the leading roles, rather than actors with their voices overdubbed; he updated the setting to Europe during World War 1; and he completely stripped the opera of its famous Masonic symbolism.

The last is a big, big problem. Flute stripped of symbolism is a Flute that is twee and nonsensical. Branagh wants to make grand sweeping statements about war and peace, but without an overall thematic structure, the work falls to pieces. It’s interesting and a little distracting to watch Branagh’s vision stagger from gritty war film to ludicrously surrealist fantasy. There are, to be sure, some amazing visuals in the movie: the Queen of the Night’s entrance atop a tank; the scenes of stomach-churning trench warfare during the overture. But the lack of unity makes this a very difficult movie to digest in one sitting. The characters of the Three Ladies and Three Genies are poorly dealt with: their appearances prompted out-loud “What the hell”s from me, so badly were they integrated into the filmed version of events.

Benjamin Jay Davis and Joseph Kaiser as Papageno and Tamino in Branagh’s The Magic Flute.

I’ll admit to a bias against opera in translation. However, Fry’s new text is overall pretty good and singable. (It also, mercifully, leaves out the casual racism and sexism that, while funny to audiences in Mozart’s era, cause cringes even among conservative operagoers today.) James Conlon conducts the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in a sprightly and animated rendition of the score.

How are the singers? Mostly good, sometimes great. Joseph Kaiser is a light lyric tenor with a more than passing resemblance to a young Russell Crowe. He plays Tamino with an appealing open freshness, and is a good enough actor that he could have a career in legitimate cinema should he choose it. Amy Carson looks beautiful (perhaps helped along by Branagh’s obvious penchant for shooting her while she’s soaking wet) and has a pleasant voice that is slightly strained in the topmost ranges.

René Pape is probably the opera world’s foremost basso, and he plays the role of the solemn Sarastro as well as anyone ever has (here he’s the chief of a war hospital, rather than a high priest). Weirdly, the role of the Speaker is also sung by Pape…not sure why. His English diction could have used a little help, but otherwise he was a textbook Sarastro.

For me the standout was the awesomely demented Lyubov Petrova as a leather-clad Queen of the Night. Petrova fearlessly attacked the Queen’s two arias, with their famously difficult coloratura and high Fs (that’s REALLY goddamned high), and presented a Queen who was perhaps less purely evil and more Tiger Mother than is the norm. She’s a beautiful woman who barely looked older than Carson, her supposed daughter. I’d pay money to see her sing pretty much anything.

The weak link was a spastic, mugging, weak-voiced Benjamin Jay Davis as Papageno. I had to seriously resist the urge to skip through all his scenes.

Musically, this is a top-notch Flute. Dramatically and cinematically, I’d advise skipping it. But it’s on Netflix if you decide to check it out.

Related

• Want to watch a brilliantly sung Flute in a legit opera-house production? Try this one from the Met, conducted by James Levine and designed by David Hockney.