Word: sarastro
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Zauberflöte is not about realism, and his vision transported the packed house from the banalities of real life into a divine fantasy realm. The stage, adorned with simple painted backdrops, was awash in pastels, and the singers wore brightly colored costumes (sky blue and gold for Sarastro and his priests, green and red for Tamino). Even the moments of melodrama weren’t allowed to take themselves seriously. The dangerous monster that nearly kills the protagonist during the opera’s opening scene was more Puff the Magic Dragon than fire-spitting beast as it hopped...
...same sublimity. There is, for example, no explanation of why the evil Queen of the Night has at her disposal three virtuous wonder-boys who help Tamino thwart the Queen’s plans after leading him to Sarastro’s temple. Nor is it obvious why Sarastro, that paragon of priestly piety, employs as his prison warden an old lecher bent on ravishing Pamina...
...Prince Tamino's (Sonny Elizaondo '00) quest to find Pamina (Tonia D'Amelio '00), his love. The rather basic storyline is complicated by Pamina's evil mother, the Queen of the Night (Tamara R. Spiewak '02), who commissions Prince Tamino to steal Pamina away from the just and wise Sarastro (John Driscoll '99) and the queen's trusted follower who guards Pamina, Monostatos (Joe Nuccio '00), with the hope of marrying...
...major roles are well sung, but, apart from Paul Lincoln's effectively goofy Papageno, the characters do not reveal the depth of psychological development implicit in Mozart's music. Oliver Worthington brings to the role of Tamino a lovely voice but little more, and Ling Ning Xu's Sarastro is dignified but unprepossessing. Worst of all, the Queen of the Night (Maria Tegzes), who has a voice that stands up to the test of her role's legendary difficulties, completely fails to command the first majestic and then terrifyingly desperate presence that the music indicates. She slouches across the stage...
...midst of extricating her from her difficulties, Tamino discovers that the source of evil in the land is not Sarastro, but the Queen of the Night, herself. Testing their virtue through a series of trials, Sarastro conspires with the two lovers and eventually triumphes with them over the forces of evil, leaving the Queen in the dust--daughterless and powerless...