Julie Taymor's hit production of Mozart's The Magic Flute returns to the Met as this season's special holiday presentation beginning December 22. The abridged, English-language version is specially priced to appeal to families and will have four matinees and one holiday evening performance, running through January 1.
The young American soprano Nicole Cabell, winner of the prestigious 2005 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, makes her Met debut as Pamina. The cast also includes Cyndia Sieden as the villainous Queen of the Night; Dimitri Pittas as the prince, Tamino; Rodion Pogossov as the birdcatcher Papageno; Kathleen Kim as his beloved Papagena; and Eric Owens as the high priest Sarastro. Russell Thomas sings Tamino at the performance on December 30. Asher Fisch conducts all five performances.
The holiday presentation of Taymor's fanciful 2004 production is a 110-minute abridged version of Mozart's opera in an English translation created for the Met by J. D. McClatchy. The specially priced tickets range from Prime Orchestra seats at $99 to $15 in the Family Circle. The four matinees are at 1:00 p.m. and the January 1 evening performance is at 7:00 p.m.
The Met initiated its holiday presentation in December 2006 with The Magic Flute, which launched the highly successful The Met: Live in HD transmission series and is now available on a newly released DVD, sold at the Met Opera Shop. In writing about those performances, The New York Times said, "Even before the Metropolitan Opera's Saturday matinee of Mozart's 'Magic Flute' began, this family-friendly version of Julie Taymor's 2004 production looked to be a huge success. Children were everywhere, a rare sight at the venerable institution." The Wall Street Journal commented that, "The shortened version preserved the delicate balance of gravity and humor in Mozart's magical tale of a prince, Tamino, who is dispatched to rescue a princess, Pamina, and discovers wisdom in the process."
About the performers
Nicole Cabell, the young American soprano who earned international attention as the 2005 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, makes her Met debut as Pamina. Marilyn Horne, a judge at that competition, said of Cabell's singing, "It's a voice that wraps itself around you." Later this season, Cabell will also appear at the Met as Adina in two performances of L'Elisir d'Amore opposite tenors Rolando Villazón and Joseph Calleja. She sang Pamina with Opera Pacific earlier this year, and in October she played Leila in Les Pêcheurs de Perles at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Next spring she will sing her first Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro at Cincinnati Opera as well Micaela in Carmen at Berlin's Deutsche Oper, where she made her debut in 2006 as Juliette in Roméo et Juliette.
The fiendishly demanding part of the Queen of the Night has become a signature role for the American soprano Cyndia Sieden, who has sung it with numerous opera companies. Her repertoire also includes Lulu, which she sang at her Met debut in 2001, and Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, which she has performed at the Vienna State Opera, the Seattle Opera, and the English National Opera. Sieden was Ariel in the 2004 world premiere of Thomas Adès's The Tempest at London's Royal Opera House and has since sung it with several other companies, including Santa Fe Opera.
Soprano Kathleen Kim made her Met debut last season as Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro and now adds another Mozart character to her repertoire with the company, Papagena. In March, she returns as a Sprite in Dvořák's Rusalka, which stars Renée Fleming in the title role. Last season at the Met, Kim also sang Oscar in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera.
New York native Dimitri Pittas sings Tamino for the first time at the Met. When he played Macduff in the new production of Macbeth at the Met last season, which was transmitted worldwide as part of The Met: Live in HD series, the New York Times reported that the tenor sang "with melting sound and dramatic urgency." A graduate of the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, Pittas has appeared in several roles at the Met since his 2005 debut as the Herald in Don Carlo, including Tybalt in the new production of Roméo et Juliette (2005). He made his Bavarian State Opera debut as Macduff this fall. Later this season, he sings Nemorino in L'Elisir d'Amore with the Welsh National Opera and in a new production at the Santa Fe Opera.
Rodion Pogossov returns to the comic role of Papageno, which he sang at the premiere of this production in 2004 and again in the 2006-07 season. The New York Times critic, calling him "a natural charmer," said, "With his goofy grin, robust voice and physical nimbleness, Mr. Pogossov was utterly endearing." The young Russian baritone, a former member of the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program who sings with opera companies throughout the world, won rave reviews earlier this year for his performance as Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Canadian Opera Company.
After making his acclaimed Met debut this season as General Leslie Groves in the premiere of John Adams's Doctor Atomic, American bass-baritone Eric Owens takes on the role of Sarastro. A finalist at the Met National Council Auditions in 1996 and a former member of the Houston Grand Opera Studio, Owens has a repertoire that ranges from the King of Scotland in Handel's Ariodante, which he sang in June at the San Francisco Opera, to Collatinus in Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia. Later this season, Owens plays Capellio in I Capuleti e i Montecchi at London's Royal Opera and gives his first New York solo recital at Weill Recital Hall.
Conductor Asher Fisch, who has previously led Met performances of The Merry Widow, Rigoletto, and Madama Butterfly, this season adds The Magic Flute. He began his conducting career as Daniel Barenboim's assistant at the Berlin State Opera and went on to become the music director at the Israeli Opera. Maestro Fisch, who is also a pianist, has conducted in major opera houses throughout the world in repertoire that spans three centuries. Last year Fisch was named the Principal Guest Conductor at the Seattle Opera.
