Peter von Winter Das Labyrinth opera to libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. Directed 2012 by Alexandra Liedtke at the Salzburg Festival. Stars Christof Fischesser, Julia Novikova, Malin Hartelius, Michael Schade, Thomas Tatzl, Regula Mühlemann, Anton Scharinger, Ute Gfrerer, Nina Bernsteiner, Christina Daletska, Monika Bohinec, Klaus Kuttler, Clemens Unterreiner, Philippe Sly. Mauro Peter, Manuel Günther, Zoltan Nagy, Paul Schrader, Benedikt Gurtner, Johannes Fiedler, and Shantia Ullmann. Ivor Bolton conducts the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg (piano and glockenspiel by Jeffrey Smith), the Salzburger Bachchor (Chorus Master Alois Glaßner), and the Salzburger Festspiele und Theater Kinderchor (Chorus Master Wolfgang Götz). Set design by Raimund Orfeo Voigt; costumes by Susanne Bisovsky and Elizabeth Binder-Neururer; choreography by Ismael Ivo. Video Director Peter Schönhofer; Director of Photography Nyika Jancsó. Produced by Paul Smaczny of Accentus Music. This recording is a world premiere! Released 2013, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: C
Seven years after Mozart's death, Schikaneder promoted Das Labyrinth as a sequel to Die Zauberflöte. Sarastro, the Queen of the Night, Tamino, Pamina, Papageno, Papagena, the Three Ladies, and Monostatos are all back, plus there are new characters.
You will recall that at the end of Die Zauberflöte, Sarastro had defeated the Queen of the Night (who retreated to her castle) and that there would soon be weddings for Tamino/Pamina and Papageno/Papagena. As Das Labyrinth opens a few day after Sarastro's victory, the Queen and Monostatos are plotting again to mess up things for the good guys and get back those Seven Solar Secrets (my translation). You probably assumed that the hazing of Tamino with the trials of fire and water was over. Wrong. Now there are two more tests for Tamino and Pamina: those of the earth (a trip through the underground labyrinth) and of the air (including a trip to the moon for Pamina that you can see on the cover art above). (The alternate title for the sequel is "The Battle with the Elements" which are, of course, fire, water, earth, and air.) So you get the picture. Die Zauberflöte had been a tremendous success. The audience wanted to see it again but with new music, adventures, and special effects.
The first impact of Mozart's absence was on the libretto. Mozart was a great humanitarian and musical statesman who carefully controlled his opera stories and the librettists who worked with him. He infused all his libretti with a sense of respect for his audience and his opera characters, all of whom he handled fairly and with compassion (like they were real people) and always with the utmost of good taste. He needed this kind of libretto as a foundation for the noble music he planned to write.
Schikaneder was a resourceful writer and impresario. But without Mozart's guidance, Schikaneder's libretto for Das Labyrinth drifted off into pandering to popular tastes with salacious sexual themes, race-baiting, folk art, and spectacular special effects. If Mozart had lived and worked with Schikaneder on a sequel, Mozart would not have countenanced this. Das Labyrinth in fact enjoyed success for about 30 years in Germany. But the libretto is not worthy of being associated with Mozart.
Peter von Winter was probably the best qualified composer in Germany to write the music for the sequel. He borrowed wholesale from Mozart (nothing wrong with that under the circumstances) and wrote beautiful new music. But the libretto is not worthy of being associated with Peter von Winter either.
After Schikaneder, Das Labyrinth was revived a few times before the Salzburg Festival show in 2012. ArkivMusic reports no recording of the opera at all (even on CD) before subject title was published. This is truly an obscure work! Still, the Salzburg folks spend a lot of time and money showing this (thank God in a shortened version!). It was performed outdoors in the garden of the Residence Palace under temporary lights. I think the next prestigious venue down in Salzburg would be a parking lot at a shopping center.
So was this worth doing and is it worth watching? Well, let's try to pry an answer loose by starting with some screenshots. Below is the Salzburg Queen of the Night played by Julia Novikov. Wow! This looks more like art or high fashion photography than an opera video. Peter Schönhofer, Nyika Jancsó, and their cameramen were working under tricky conditions and lighting that cast shadows over the faces of the singers much of the time. But they still managed to come up with many strikingly beautiful images:
Below is a s shot of the Queen and Monostatos (Klaus Kuttler). Novikov is a beautiful woman and capable actress. But she did not demonstrate on this "video world premiere" night the ability to sing reliably her long and difficult role. Well, experienced, fully-qualified sopranos are not going to invest themselves in Das Labyrinth, so maybe Novikov's rendition is the best one could hope for. I assume Monostatos would have been presented in blackface in 1798, and this sort of ridicule of blacks out of racial prejudice was also common in the United States in that era and later. Today, of course, blackface is considered shameful everywhere and can only be justified, if ever, when a main purpose of the production is strict historical accuracy. I doubt that the Salzburg Festival can meet this standard, but I'll leave it up to you how harshly to condemn this use of blackface:
The Queen recruited new allies in her struggle with Sarastro. On the left below is King Tipheus (Clemens Unterreiner) and his supporter Sithos (Philippe Sly). The Queen has promised Tipheus the hand of Pamina in marriage in exchange for his support:
