“Where do we go from here?” has been adopted as the strapline for Nicola Benedetti’s first Edinburgh Festival as director, the open challenge festooning billboards throughout the festival city. The full quote from Dr Martin Luther King “Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community?” points towards Benedetti’s insistence on even greater community appeal and engagement this year. Mozart’s The Magic Flute was therefore an apt choice, a singspiel work written for the people, first performed in the popular Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna and here at this sold-out Usher Hall concert performance by a cast of lively soloists with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Maxim Emelyanychev.
With the chorus, woodwind, brass and percussion in place, the entire string section and Emelyanychev entered en bloc, no podium required, setting the tone by springing a lively overture full of thrilling accent, deeply sombre rasping chords from the natural brass and an exciting string bounce. One of the compensations for a concert performance over staged opera is the ability to watch the conductor and players, who are normally mostly hidden from the audience. A clear rapport between the energetic and effervescent Emelyanychev and his forces was an electric force in the hall, propelling the performance forwards with gusto and irreverent fun. Emelyanychev let the music breathe, organically shaping balance and tempo, facing the players at one moment but turning to his singers the next, keeping the ensemble pinpoint sharp.
Singing in German from memory, the luxury cast of characters gave a splendid account, capturing the comedy and drama. Elizabeth Watts, Catriona Morison and Claudia Huckle were the three well-blended ladies, Watts’ silky soprano floating over the deeply rich contraltos, bickering furiously as they vied to be left alone with the handsome Prince Tamino. Brindley Sherratt was an exhilaratingly resonant Sarastro and a magnificently imperious Kathryn Lewek owned the platform and stopped the show as she nailed the Queen of the Night arias. Matthew Brook and Ruairi Bowen blended finely as the two priests, Peter Hoare was a menacing Monostatos and Rachel Redmond was a Papagena with top gloss.
As Tamino and Pamina, Turkish tenor Ilker Arcayürek and American soprano Julia Bullock sang with sensitivity, Bullock growing her notes in "Ach, ich fühl's”, both singers turning up the vocal heft when needed. Hungarian Gyula Orendt was an entertaining, colourful Papeneno, richly sung, blowing Monostatos off stage with a blast of dayglow feathers and playfully transferring his noose in Act 2 to the conductor. There is welcome room for some clowning in concert performance.
Singspeil is tricky to bring off as a concert piece, and here two speakers, Thomas Quasthoff and Neil John Gibson shared the role in a newly commissioned witty English narration by Sir David Pountney. Beginning promisingly with Quasthoff declaring himself Emanuel Schikaneder, the original librettist and theatre impresario, Gibson’s ‘late’ arrival (the buses, the festival…) with birdcage and vernacular patter felt misjudged. Filling in the plot amusingly between numbers was one thing, but speaking for singers still on the platform at the time felt awkwardly contrived.