While Arizona Opera has its sights set on the 2023-24 season, the company will bring its 2022-23 season finale to Linda Ronstadt Music Hall this weekend.
Austin-based director Tara Faircloth, making her sixth appearance with Arizona Opera, is spearheading a remount of Daniel Rigazziβs production of Mozartβs βThe Magic Flute.β Performances are on Saturday, April 15, and Sunday, April 16.
Faircloth has updated the 2015 production with some video projections that take the audience deeper into the forest as Prince Tamino and the bird-catcher Papageno, who carries magic bells and plays pipes, set out to rescue Pamina, daughter of the Queen of the Night, from Sarastro, the Queenβs adversary and ranking priest.
Faircloth, who has been a regular to Arizona Opera since debuting in 2015 with Pucciniβs βEugene Onegin,β sees βThe Magic Fluteβ as βdelightful piece of theaterβ that can be viewed on two levels: as a story about Mankindβs search of self-actualization to become a whole person and as a story of two goofy guys having an adventure and meeting interesting, wacky characters as they face challenges to complete their mission.
βI think thatβs pretty delightful from an audience perspective,β said Faircloth. βAnd itβs some of the best music put to the page, and thatβs also really wonderful.β
Rigazziβs production sets βThe Magic Fluteβ in the late 1880s Steampunk style that Faircloth said feels very much like a whimsical fairytale.
βThe princess wears a pretty pink dress and the Temple of Wisdom priests all look kinda like βHarry Potterβ characters,β she said. βTheyβre wearing a lot of velvet robes and such.β
Images from surrealist painter Rene Magritte complete the vision of a βbeautiful, magical world,β Faircloth added.
Faircloth, one of less than 60 female opera directors worldwide, also approached the piece from a female view, extracting some of the misogynistic language from the score, including declarations that you βcanβt trust women and their wily ways; they talk and have nothing to say.β
βBasically, we cut the bad parts. We cut so many of those parts. Thatβs one way a modern director can address problematic scores is we just take out the parts we donβt like,β said Faircloth, a 20-year veteran of opera stages around the country. βAnd I think that Mozart would applaud this. He was the ultimate craftsman of the dramaturgy. He was a man of the people and he wrote what his audience would enjoy and he did it very well. And I think he was infinitely practical and interested in crafting pieces that really speak to the human spirit where it is in the moment.β
βI think a lot of times we want to just shuffle women characters into a victim status or things are being done to them. β¦ I read these stories and I see women put in tough circumstances that are making really interesting, difficult choices,β she explained. βThey might not end up being the hero, but that doesnβt meant that their choices arenβt heroic.β
In addition to βThe Magic Fluteβ and βEugene Onegin,β Faircloth has directed Arizona Operaβs productions of Bizetβs βCarmenβ and Mozartβs βDon Giovanniβ in 2016, Pucciniβs βToscaβ in 2017 and Mozartβs βThe Marriage of Figaroβ in 2019.
βThe Magic Fluteβ cast includes a number of current and past members of Arizona Operaβs Marion Roose Pullin Studio artists program, including tenor Terrence Chin-Loy, who, with fellow βMagic Fluteβ castmate Matthew Anchel, joined Grammy-winning soprano Angel Blue in a Tucson Desert Song Festival recital at Holsclaw Hall on April 1.
βI love to see young singers that are early in their careers that you get a chance to see as baby superstars,β Faircloth said.
The audience from the 2021 Arizona Opera performance of "El Milagro del Recuerdo" hung around in the courtyard of the Temple of Music and Art to nibble petit fours and sip sangria while a female mariachi performed.
