Magic Flute - musical

[dfwtheatreguy]

Watching "American Idol" tonight and hearing the rendition of "Queen of the Night" by Whitney Houston made me think - could this be interpolated into a "Moulin Rouge"-esque version of Mozart's "Magic Flute"? It would work I think.

[Fenchurch]

I do think it could work. very well as a matter of fact,

but Im looking forward to seeing Stephen Fry's film version, set during WWI

Can't wait.

[LittleFish8386]

EDIT: I stand corrected. Still, Houston singing Mozart is something I don't want to ever, EVER imagine again.

[Fenchurch]

Ive never heard Whitney Houston sing Der Holle Raeche, the Queen of the Night's second act aria, which I believe you were referring to, but I just looked up Whitney Houston's "Queen of the Night" and they are not the same song, not related at all.

This song has nothing to do with Mozart's opera, you know that, right?

[SeanMartin]

Whitney singing Mozart......

MUST.

GET.

IMAGE.

OUT.

OF.

HEAD.

[Julian2]

I've actually often thought about musicalizing The Magic Flute. I think it could be a very cool show. I loved the Julie Taymor version that was on TV recently. (I only wish I hadn't missed a good chunk of the beggining!)

[whatever2]

didnt the Met sort of do this already w/ their abridged, english-language "holiday version" this season?

it's been broadcast on PBS (it's public television begging season here in NYC, so it should be on again any day now) -- check it out and see for yourself.

nathan gunn is yummy!

[Fenchurch]

Julian, The Magic Flute has already been musicalized.

Mozart wrote it, remember him?

Songs, scenes...yup, sounds like a musical to me :)

[Julian2]

Two words. Miss Siagon.

[dfwtheatreguy]

yeah, but "Magic Flute" could be really fun as a musical - how much fun could they squeeze out of "Butterfly"?

[Fenchurch]

Miss Saigon is a musicalization of a completely sung-through opera in the verisimo style.

The kind of opera that Puccini was writing almost 150 years after Mozart cannot be compared to The Magic Flute just because both are now called operas.

Mozart never considered The Magic Flute an opera, it was a SINGSPIEL or "singing play"....or...a musical, a light entertainment that was not performed in royal concert halls like Le Nozze di Figaro, but in the roudiest of theatrical venues.

No need to "musicalize" this musical.
A different musical with a new score based on the story?
Highly unlikely as some of the themes discussed in the piece are a character who is evil because he is black and a Queen who is considered evil because she is a woman who rules alone without a man.

[Julian2]

Fenchurch, I bow to you knowledge of opera, it is obviously greater than my own.

However, I disagree about the possibilities of turning The Magic Flute into a modern musical theatre stage piece. There are examples in theatre history of pieces taken and adapted while still remaining in the same genre of theatre. Volpone being adapted to Sly Fox being one of them. I would never dream of taking say, Company, and rewriting it with a new score and book, but if I lived 500 years in the future, I might take a crack at it. Not to mention the other theatre works that are an amalgamation of plots from other plays.

Highly unlikely as some of the themes discussed in the piece are a character who is evil because he is black and a Queen who is considered evil because she is a woman who rules alone without a man.

These things can be adapted.

[Fenchurch]

Monastotos could be worked around, but it would be hard to rework the "ein stolzes weib" thing out of the Magic Flute. What else is the Queen of the Night's crime?

Im totally open to it, but the question that comes to mind is, who would write it? Who would have the audacity to try to write better music?

I just think a new libretto might be better. I just can't think of anyone writing better music that what is in the opera.

[Julian2]

I don't know about better music, but if it was done as a musical theatre piece, it would most likely be done in a completely different style. I wouldn't be so concerned about a better music, but a good adaptation that could stand well on its own.

EDIT; And as far as the queen, I haven't studied the show that much, so I can't really say. Going on what you've said here though, pehaps making a stong statement for the need of balance in the world order, and she has attempted to disrupt that by attempting to usurp the opposite power. Make it less woman without man and more about simple balance. But I don't know, because I'm obviously not as familiar with it as you are.

[Fenchurch]

Yeah, but couldn't that just be done with a different setting and text, but keep mozart's music?

Im only championing this because Zauberflote over all the other music theater pieces of his, is still good AND accessible, and is far more upbeat than some of his other operas. Its also much shorter.

This is my suggestion, new book, new lyrics. Same music, it's just already perfectly serviceable.

Its one of the reasons im so excited about the Stephen Fry version, because basically thats what it is.

[Julian2]

Yeah, but couldn't that just be done with a different setting and text, but keep mozart's music?

You mean like Hammerstein did with Carmen.

Im only championing this because Zauberflote over all the other music theater pieces of his, is still good AND accessible, and is far more upbeat than some of his other operas. Its also much shorter.

You have a point there. I guess because I'm more of a musical theatre (as in the american artform that has been evolving since the early 1900's) man, I would be equally excited by the possibility of the story being put in such a vernacular. But I do see you point.

Edited for clarity.

[Fenchurch]

Yeah, exactly like Carmen Jones, which I really kinda liked when I was a kid. Now I think it's kinda racist, but the idea is great.
Kismet used borodin themes
Happiest Girl in the World - offenbach
But that would just be an English translation of the opera, but with a musical theater sensibility attached to it, which I agree would make a difference.

I wouldn't say the musical theater has been perfected, I prefer to think of any artform as constantly changing and evolving, otherwise it belongs in a museum.

[Julian2]

I wouldn't say the musical theater has been perfected, I prefer to think of any artform as constantly changing and evolving, otherwise it belongs in a museum.

Agreed, I should have picked a better word.

Thinking about it some more, It does also have to do with the music. If you think about it, you can really identify a culture with the music they listen to, and I would love to see the enchanting story of The Magic Flute adapted to the music of my culture. I'm not knocking Mozart, but I would love to see the story with a little om-pa-pa. I would galdly (and do hope to) learn more about opera and learn to appriciate it, but showtunes are the music of my world, at least for the moment. Maybe an adapted text in the right production would translate it to "my world" for me, I don't know. I'd have to see it. I could see it happening, I just don't know. My head just says "adapt" before "rewrite" because of my leanings. Does that make any sense?

[Fenchurch]

I grew up solely on musical theater music, so I TOTALLY know where you are coming from, Julian.

But even so, I suggest you take another listen to Mozart's score for Zauberflote, it has its share of oompah. If you can't listen to the whole thing, I suggest you take a listen to the following tracks:

Schnelle Fusse
Monatatos's Aria
Anything that Papageno sings
Especially the duet with Papagena, that's the cutest thing in the world.
And imagine the Three ladies with musical theater voices, but well trained.
The whole piece could be done with performers who are equally worried about their acting as much as their singing.

Also, after learning more about other styles of music in America (Jazz, afro-cuban music, minstrelsy, which is basically the father of tin pan alley and american musical theater, ragtime, blues, and other folk styles) I realized I missed ALL the signifiers and the allusions in the musicals I had listened to all my life, and this Whole New World of musical meaning opened to me.

Musical theater is basically pastiche, especially the so-called Golden Age of musicals, so without the knowledge of the styles outside of the genre, then you're missing like 3/4 of the piece.

And a lot of musical theater composers study classically and therefore have a dialogue with classical music in their work, and without that knowledge, its like I was being left out of a clique.

can you hear the Wagner in Nine?
Or the Spohr in Company?
The Mozart in Nunsene?
The Gounod in Candide?

and it's not just these clever little musical jokes and references either.
There's a lot of "listening in between the lines" that musical theater composers do, and it just magnifies my admiration for them. Personally I think there is a completely different kind of craft in songwriting than in writing something through composed, which in its extreme (Wagner, Puccini, etc) is very much a masturbatory experience on the part of the composer. Songwriting is like chiseling a beautiful statue out of a hunk of marble. You tease it out into this finite form, and you have to abandon it at some point, but what you have left is this concise, beautiful gem of a piece of music. I think it has to be one of the hardest musical acheivements to make.

This is why Schubert is one of my favorite composers. He wrote hundreds of the world's best songs.

[Roninjoey]

How about The Rockin' Flute? Perhaps The Magic Guitar?

[Julian2]

^Me likey.

[mallardo]

Even in opera houses today the racist/sexist ideas - not to mention the Masonic rituals - have to be distorted or toned down or completely ommitted in order to make the piece palatable. What's the point of doing this story again? It's only done now because of Mozart's music, certainly not because of the libretto.

[hannahshule]

By Musicalize, do you mean put it into English? There is already some dialogue in the opera (or speilsing), and the Met's family version, a significantly shortened and English version seems to make it as much a musical as it can get.

[Jon]

As far as turining operas (or their plotlines)into pop musicals - Madame Butterfly, Aida and La Boheme all have fairly interesting stories. Magic Flute has a thin, silly plot. Take way Mozart's score and there's nothing there.

[Justin D]

although i loved what Taymor did, i thought the story was totally boreing and uninteresting and rather pointless, the finan cutain came down and i was still waiting for the story to start. so unless they do a major plot re-do, i dont think it is worth doing.