In pre-curtain remarks before Sunday's "Die Zauberflote," Anchorage Opera General Director Reed Smith revealed how doubtful the season looked when he took over the company in September. Having just arrived in Anchorage to take the job, he stopped unpacking his moving boxes in anticipation of soon sending them back.
An industrious fundraising effort, still underway, and good management apparently turned the tide. Not only did Anchorage see a solid production of Mozart's last opera April 10-12, but Smith was also able to announce an ambitious upcoming season. Though the title of the show translates into English as "The Magic Flute," the real abracadabra may be the fact that it happened at all.
Cleo Pettitt's handsome set, a simple, formal temple arrangement, worked nicely for all the scenes. With the evocative lighting design of Lauren Mackenzie Miller, the plan made it possible to click from scene to scene without a pause, which helped make momentum of the choppy, problematic plot smooth, intensely engaging and almost logical. Credit for that can be shared with director Bill Fabris, who turned it into a kind of play being done by Greek gods and shortened the dialogue, and the tight, precise conducting of Thomas Douglas.
For the most part the orchestra did well. The lines for the wind parts, for example, percolated vividly. However, I could not hear their notes in the "threefold chord," which seemed stuck in the horns.
Local performers made up most of the cast. Notable among them were Amber Gauthier as Pamina and Anastasia Jamieson as the First Lady; Michal Kolb and Marsha Ackerman sang Ladies Two and Three. Maura Wharton was amusing and lively in the short part of Papagena. Rachel Hastings had difficulties with the Queen of the Night's high notes, perhaps a result of doing the grueling part three nights back-to-back.
The Three Spirits were sweetly sung by Sarah Cvancara, Stephanie Courter and Glaceia Henderson-Hopkins. Martin Eldred was the Speaker of the Temple and Kyle Ganze the Second Priest and the Second Armored Man, paired with Daniel Salas-Peterson. As the slaves, Denny Wells and Chester Mainot had little singing to do but were appropriately silly or somber as required.
The chorus prepared by Mari Hahn was small but sang beautifully. The beasts, which seemed to have stepped in from a production of "Cats," were danced by Michelangelo Canale, Cady Lynn Jenkins and Kelly Chase.
Michael Scarcelle as Papageno stood out among the guest artists, highly animated and in excellent voice. Branch Fields had a clear bass but not the gravitas expected of Sarastro, despite a Moses-style beard and wig that could not disguise his youthful looks and may not have been the best idea. As Monostatos, here depicted as Bacchus, Jeffery Halili displayed a fine match of character-acting and vocal skills. Acting-wise, Ben Robinson made an appealing Tamino, but by Sunday he had some of the same problems that affected Hastings, and perhaps for the same reason.
The Discovery Theatre was full on the last show of the three-day run, a happy indication that word of mouth was selling seats. A few patrons may have been disappointed at the lack of a dragon in the first scene -- the sinister serpent had to be imagined -- but the monster is something of a throwaway prop, never seen again for the rest of the show, so it may have been a wise way to save money for next season.
Speaking of which, the 2015-16 lineup will include the familiar "Carmen" and "The Mikado," and an adventurous selection, Astor Piazzolla's "tango opera," "Maria de Buenos Aires."