OPERA FOR THE PEOPLE | July 5th 2008

Oliver Wia

Earlier this summer, Christoph Hagel staged "The Magic Flute" in an underground metro station in Berlin. Peppered with Berlin slang and funny allusions, it was a fine break from the usual opera-house fare, writes Cornelia Rudat ...

Amadeus himself would have loved it. Christoph Hagel relocated "The Magic Flute", Mozart's most famous opera, in a Berlin underground station. He removed the renowned work from the daunting environs of an opera house and delivered it to the people. More than 200 years after Mozart conceived it, the opera remains a profound meditation on power and love, strength and weakness, and the ghosts that haunt us all.

Hagel, who was trained as conductor and pianist in Vienna, Munich and Berlin by such masters as Leonard Bernstein and Sergiu Celibidache, is known for transforming classical works in unusual locations. His legendary productions of "Don Giovanni" at the E-Werk (a former power station) in 1997; "The Magic Flute in a circus tent" with George Tabori in Circus Roncalli in 1998; and "Apollo and Hyacinth", starring Ismael Ivo, a Brazilian solo dancer, at the Bodemuseum in 2006, made him famous as an innovative but slightly cranky "event-conductor".

His latest work, which he both conducted and directed, was terrific, proving perhaps that he is more creative than cranky. He had the idea for the show some years ago, while waiting for an underground train. "I saw a photo booth and imagined a young man going in there," he explains in the programme. "He finds a forgotten photo of a young woman. He falls in love with her and tries to find her by using this underground line up and down until his desperate search gets him through the entire underground network of the city. Cleary, he was Tamino."

Like Mozart's Singspiel, Hagel's production was written and performed in German. About half of Emanuel Schikaneder's original libretto was cut and rewritten, with the final version peppered with Berlin slang and funny allusions. Anyone familiar with Berlin found it all amusing and entertaining. Fascinating video projections and a dazzling light show by media artist Tina Zimmermann made the work more intense and thrilling.

Designed by architect Axel Schulte and built between 1994 and 2006, the new underground "Bundestag" station (named for the German parliament, which will connect to the city's central train station from autumn 2009), has been described as an "underground cathedral" for its high ceiling and tall pillars. The acoustics are surprisingly good; when I saw the show, the orchestra was on the platform and nearly 700 spectators sat on tribunes around the station. It made for an appropriate empire for a modern Queen of the Night, performed by the remarkable Alexandra Parshina, from St Petersburg.

In this production Tamino, performed by tenor Michael Müller, is not lost in a distant land but wandering around an unused underground station. He is not pursued by a serpent but by a yellow Berlin subway train (not a real one, for security reasons, but a very comic dummy), which he, a prince from the past, takes for a giant snake. The queen's three attendants, who rescue the handsome man in his pink Rococo costume, are cleaning ladies of Berlin's public-transport company BVG. The "king of the hearts" is undoubtedly Papageno, played by Jan Plewka, a rock singer from Hamburg and once the frontman of the band "Selig". His voice was weak when compared with the more formal opera singers, but his performance as an easygoing punk and sponger who happily lives on state benefits was just awesome. It duly earned him standing ovations in the end.

When Tamino recovers in the first act and sees before him Papageno (rummaging for something useful in the bins), a most amusing dialogue ensues. "Tell me, jolly friend, who are you?" Punk Papageno replies with irony: "What a stupid question, a civil servant, can't you see that? And you must have just come from a carnival ball?" Asked where they both are, Papageno replies: "Well, this is the government's quarter, where Angela Merkel rules." Imagine, the German Chancellor as the Queen of the Night? The comparison doesn't seem so far-fetched when you see the nearby Chancellery, which looks darkly monstrous at night.

Pamina, played by Monica Garcia Albea, a charming Spanish soprano, is a student caught for fare-dodging by Sarastro's servant Monostatos (an underground police officer). She is kept in the temple (Tempelhof airport) of Sarastro (a civil servant in a suit, seen reading the Financial Times). The only aspect of the opera left untouched by the hand of quirky modernity is the ending. As in Mozart's original, love triumphs over power, and good over evil. What a nice thought. 

Unfortunately "The Magic Flute in the underground station" has finished its run. But it whets the appetite for more work by Christoph Hagel, and for more innovative use of Berlin's public spaces.

(Cornelia Rudat works in The Economist office in Berlin. Her last piece for More Intelligent Life was about the Berlinale.)