Customer Reviews

Mozart: Die Zauberflote - Highlights

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Just to say I can't help listening once and over again Christina Deutekom's magical and breathtaking performance of both arias. Never have I heard any other performance of those feared notes that can be anyhow compared to her extraordinary and unbeatable technique. She hits the higher notes distinctively and with such incomparable power that spells the listener with her menacing message. I have spent ages trying to find the best Queen of the night ever and, here admitting I found other extrardinary performers (Popp, Gruberova, Jo) Deutekom's large voice and unique self-assurance makes her contribution to the Magic Flute touch the realm of perfection. Something to worship and, without any doubt, to respect as a joy...forever.

This is my second choice for the greatest Magic Flute recording. George Solti conducts the Vienna Philharmonic with majesty, spirituality, beauty, magic and light-hearted melody. Stars tenor Stuart Burrows as Tamino, Pilar Lorengar as Pamina, Herman Prey as Papageno, Marti Talvela as Sarastro and making a sensational Queen of the Night is Christina Deutekom. This recording is among one of the best you'll find. It is a classic and traditional interpretation and hearing it one would assume this is the way Mozart intended for it to sound. The cast is perfect, the acting right on target, the sound is sublime.

The Magic Flute is truly Mozart's greatest opera. It was written when he was deathly ill and it's possible he wanted to leave the world with one final masterpiece. In his deathbed, he was heard saying he wish he could hear The Magic Flute being sung to him as he died. There is a timeless magic and melancholy in the work, a work as serious as it can be whimsical. Sarastro's arias are divine, like the voice of God singing about wisdom, truth and peace. Marti Talvela has a beautiful bass voice and his "In Diese Hall" and "O Isis and Osiris" are incredible. The greatest ideals of the Masons, which Mozart was part of, are expressed as well as the most noble and humane beliefs of the Enlightenment, which Mozart was definately a figure head of. Christina Deutekom, the polar opposite of Sarastro, is a scheming and vicious witch. Notice how sweetly she sings the first aria "O Zittre Nicht" an aria intended to deceive Tamino into thinking she's on the side of good. The coloratura is lazer-perfect. In the Vengeance Aria "Der Holle Rache" she shows her real colors.

Deutekom sings with dramatic intensity and fury, without sacrificing the brilliant coloratura high F's. This is how the Queen ought to be sung. It is not a pretty song that ought to be sung pretty. She's given her daughter Pamina a dagger and is ordering her to kill Sarastro, the good and noble Jesus figure, or she will completely disown her. Other than Deutekom, Edda Moser sings in this same way with intensity and rage. Pilar Lorengar is not my first choice for Pamina (I prefer Anneliese Rothenberger) but Lorengar has a sweet and innocent quality to her voice which makes her a suitable Pamina. Stuart Burrows' lyric tenor voice is appropriate for the romantic prince Tamino. The famous mezzo-soprano Ivonne Minton makes a cameo as one of the Three Ladies. Herman Prey as Pagapeno is a treat, funny and witty. This is one of the better versions. The first, though, on my list is Wolfgang Sawallisch's 1973 version with Rothenberger, Peter Schreir, Walter Berry, Kurt Moll and Edda Moser. That is the all time best with the greatest Mozartian thought and care.