Sarastro Barry Martin Tamino Ronald Samm Papageno Brian Green Queen of night Laure Meloy Pamina Maureen Braithwaite Three ladies/boys Rilla Darling, Alison Crookendale, Katy Bingham Best Monostatos Hurdis Grandison Armed men,priests Tomos Ellis, Lurie Kubiak Papagena Ana Martinez Conductor Odaline de la Martinez Director Glyn Paul London Concertante Pegasus Opera Company Replacing Isis and Osiris with Voodoo in The magic flute is entirely plausible. Ancient Egypt is a distant, fantastic world that traditionally provides an exotic mirror of ourselves and also provided a fashionable decor for late eighteenth century audiences. The Carribean is perhaps the most exotic part of the new world, and was also a playground of the imagination for eighteenth-century audiences. (Earlier in the century, Polly, the sequel to The beggar's opera, shipped the London lowlife to a Carribean island populated by noble savages.) And Voodoo provides a fertile framework of ritual, and, again, a fashionable decor for modern audiences. The production peformed Mozart's music straight, and the text in Jeremy Sams' translation with minor adaptations, mainly the replacment of Isis and Osiris with Father Legba (the top Voodoo Lwa, or demon in the greco-roman sense). The payoff is piecemeal, but the production doesn't damage the central emotional and comic content of the opera. The big picture remains the same, a rite of passage in a mysterious setting. Sarastro becomes a Voodoo priest, interestingly ambivalent, and the trials involve card reading and the sacrifice of a chicken. The three ladies wear disco kit. The thing about Monostatos seems to be his naff Bermuda shorts. His sidekicks are zombies, and he initially torments a life-size Voodoo doll as Pamina, tied by the hands to a post, reacts. This is much more disturbing than anything possible in a conventional production. The flute is a lurid coloured plastic toy, and the bells become a steel drum (with real steel drum sounds coming from the pit). What works well is the treatment of Papageno as Baron Samedi, a maverick Lwa associated with death, resurrection, and general bad behaviour. He seems to combine Eros and Thanatos, something like Hermes without the verbality, embodying the way destruction, pain and life are totally interlinked. Papageno popped out of a coffin at the beginning. He, Monostatos and Papagena all used it for entrances and exits thoughout the work, and it became a pram for the Papagenic brood at the end. Papageno had one side of his face painted white, presumably reflecting his double nature, and wore a hat with bright feathers with a tuxedo (no shirt -- Brian Green who played the role is also a martial arts instructor). Papageno's laziness and comic exuberance do fit perfectly with the struggle between death and life. (Similarly Papagena's initial disguise can also be seen as a memento mori as well as comic grotesquerie.) And Baron Samedi also has a tendency to turn up uninvited at rituals and drink too much. The performance itself was about as good as the sum of its parts. The small instrumental ensemble, conducted by Odaline de la Martinez, was decidedly unfocussed in the opening chords, where it really didn't have a chance, not least against the audience, but fine in the cheerful and burlesque sections. Maureen Braithwaite was outstanding and delightful as Pamina. She has a fine, expressive voice and conveyed the simple, strong emotions forcefully. Her performance of Ach, ich fuehl's was as moving as you are likely to hear. Laure Meloy was an icy Queen of the night, and did quite a bit more than get the notes. She was also involved in a coup de theatre, when she turned her back on the audience after Sarastro confronted her towards the end, and her rigid cloak collapsed, empty, something like the wicked witch of the west. The three ladies were amusing, and also adequate (that is pretty good) vocally. They sang the women's parts in the chorus as well as the three boys, which adds up to an impressive amount of music in a performance. Ana Martinez was a naughty, slightly bizarre Papagena, definitely a force of nature. Ronald Samm had a solid, amiable presence as Pamino. He sounded rough and unsupported in a couple of passages, but generally sang well. Brian Green was a funny, sexy Papageno, and he got inside the music very effectively, holding the audience's attention in stand-and-deliver mode. Hurdis Grandison was a creepy Monstatos. Barry Martin was an imposing Sarastro, with a resonant bass voice that might go places. He looked far too young. The armed men were understatedly funny. They also sang the priests (as often) and the men's parts in the choruses, and Laurie Kubiak also sang the Speaker. The set was darkish, and slightly confused, with a goatish death's head on the backcloth. The direction was simple, with a minimum of unscripted schtick, straighforward treatment of the scripted stuff, bug gestures for the rituals, and apparently a lot of work on what the music and words are really about. The detail wasn't always perfectly clear, but it was always clear what the characters were going through. The audience seemed to be in the mood for pantomime rather than opera, and to enjoy the whole thing greatly.