The Lamont School of Music will present The Magic Flute April 15-18
The Lamont School of Music Opera Program and Lamont Symphony Orchestra will present The Magic Flute April 15–18 at the Newman Center for the Performing Arts.
“It’s a beautiful and satisfying story,” says Steve Seifert, executive director of the Newman Center. “It’s an incredibly deep, meaningful, confident work of art.”
Before Seifert joined the Newman Center, he was executive director of Opera Colorado and chairman of its board, but his love of opera extended long before then. During his previous career as an attorney, Seifert would offer talks about upcoming operas. People would bring a sack lunch and Seifert would tell the group what they needed to know to really understand and enjoy the opera.
Seifert explains that when Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote The Magic Flute, opera was in transition. “Opera buffa,” a more comic style of opera, was becoming popular compared to a traditional, serious style of opera, which is called “opera seria.” And in Germany, another type of opera known as “singspiel” would allow actors to use spoken dialogue instead of sung recitative to move the plot along in between songs.
Mozart wrote The Magic Flute for a suburban theater in Vienna using the basic structure of singspiel but incorporating musical styles from all three kinds of operas. Mozart selects styles depending on the character: more serious characters sing opera seria while simple characters sing music common in singspiel.
“Mozart blends them together in a seamless fashion,” Seifert says.
Because Mozart wrote this opera for a specific, common theater, it was intended to be family friendly. Seifert says one of the brilliant things about this opera is that children can enjoy it as a fairy tale and yet there are endless opportunities to analyze it for adults.
“The level of Mozart’s genius is simply staggering,” Seifert says.
The Magic Flute will be sung in German with English dialogue. Performances are 7:30 p.m. April 15–17, with a matinee performance at 2:30 p.m. April 18. Tickets are $12–$27. Tickets can be purchased through Ticketmaster or the Newman Center Box Office. For more information, call the Lamont Concert Line at 303-871-6412 or visit The Lamont School of Music.