You can see why the music colleges return again and again to Mozart’s feathered fairytale. Its challenges are shared pretty evenly across a large cast. The action runs from comedy to tragedy (and back), allowing a wide range of dramatic possibilities. And one of the guiding themes is, after all, the journey from naive youth to enlightened adulthood.
But blending all those themes together into a show that’s both witty and wise is a demanding ask for inexperienced singers, and the Royal College of Music haven’t exactly helped their singers by opting for the original German. Hearing so much lumpen diction strongly suggested that they would have learnt much more about direct communication with the audience from a zingier English translation.
That would also have perked up Tim Carroll’s new staging. Going on the basic storytelling — and neatly abstract designs by Roger Butlin — this production was non-intrusive, effective and intelligent. Accept your own nature, Carroll seems to be suggesting, and join the world — the reason, perhaps, why even the forces of darkness reconcile with the good in the final moments. Still, it’s the levity that’s missing, and Carroll should have given more vim and vigour to his comic anchor, here the amiable but slightly worthy Papageno of Peter Braithwaite.
A few more nods to proper Mozartian style wouldn’t have gone amiss, either, though Michael Rosewell conducts the college band punchily enough. Tyler Clarke was a confident Tamino with beefy high notes that sometimes need to be negotiated a little more delicately. Suzanne Shakespeare negotiated the Queen of the Night’s stratospherics with good taste if not quite enough fire in her belly; her benign counterpart, Jimmy Holliday’s throaty Sarastro, also wanted a bit of umph. A good trio of ladies made their mark, and Sarah-Jane Brandon’s elegant Pamina showed off pure tone and clean legato — if not the colour and expression to truly set one’s heart racing.
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Box office: 020-7591 4314, to Dec 5