Last Sunday, on February the third, my friends and I attended the UBC Opera’s rendition of Mozart’s “Die Zauberflote” at the Chan Centre. We made it a little late to the show (maybe 15 minutes?) and thus were placed in the upper seating as to not disturb the audience. Pleasantly enough, I think that the upper seating was the best we could have gotten – especially because we were planning on sitting at the bottom! From our birds-eye view we were able to see not only the mainstage and its actors without hindrance, but also the orchestra in their pit in front of the stage. With the orchestra being mostly unobstructed, I was able to visually see when the music was being played in monophony or homophony, or when something was being played imitatively and by what groups, among many other things.
This play is from the baroque period and is called a “singspiel” because of its alternation between spoken prose and singing. I recognized that a lot of the music scores were very emotional and complex, making me really believe that it was from the baroque. Some songs were high energy with lots of imitative polyphony, while others were more somber and serious , with their instruments playing homophonically. In the first performance we saw, we saw the Queen of the Night preform “O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn” – a dramatic performance of two back-to-back songs. This performance was memorable because of how the singer led the orchestra on as they quasi-imitate and play off of her tones and pitches. When they did so, it’d create a lovely sound as all the sounds were being played in a homorhythmic fashion. Apart from these instances however, the song was not very polyphony, as the voice was always leading and was the most interesting part of the music. This was emphasized when she sang melismatically and back and forth up and down (I forget/don’t know the term – educate me!) while hitting crazy high pitches; the actress was very well trained and talented! At the end of the performance, a feeling of awe and satisfaction rushed over the crowd and a tremendous applause erupted from the audience. Bravo!
The ensuing songs were less dramatic but very varied, with some with a lot of energy, and others calm and smooth. I think some of the most interesting pieces here featured strong masculine voices. It gave good contrast to the dramatic songs of the Queen. I enjoyed the piece with Sanastro, the head priest, singing in his temple alongside his fellow churchmen and choir. Sanastro had a heavy bass voice that was well accompanied with other low-frequency instruments such as the cello.
However, those pieces did not compare to the Queen of the Night’s first performance, and her later performance of “Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen”. In this piece, the Queen was telling her daughter, Prima (a protagonist), to kill Sanastro. The Queen places a dagger in her daughter’s hand and ends her scene. This performance was comparatively dramatic as her first, although this time was filled with more anger and rage. The set was lit a vivid orange as the Queen and her daughter performed, and the Queen was definitely the most powerful person on the stage. Just like in her first piece, the Queen hit crazy high notes, although this time she did so with a stab.
All in all it was an excellent performance by UBC Opera and was a great introduction into live opera music. I recommend my fellow peers to check out other opera performances as they are a great venue to exercise the knowledge gained in our music appreciation class. I have taken the liberty to list some local events. Check them out!
The Singer Behind the Song – February 19, 2019
La Boheme – February 14-24, 2019
Faust – April 27 + May 2 + May 5
Cheers!
Tyson Fisher