Saturday night I brought the Philharmonic club to the Julliard. We saw what might have been the best presentation of Mozart's The Magic Flute ever rendered. The stage was adorned with the face of a large cement building, and some caution 'sawhorses'and barbed wire piled in a corner, and a light on a metal structure like an oil well in the back. There Tamino, the California surfer dude is found by machine gun yeilding maids of the queen of the night. They tell the Queen and she sends them to him with a picture of her daughter, Pamina, who has been kidnapped by Sarastro, the King. He immediately falls in love with Pamina, or at least with her picture, and accepts the quest to rescue her from Sarastro. He teams up with Papegeno, the mine seeker who wanders the worn torn country in camo pants and a T-shirt, carrying a metal detector. He finds mines and puts pins in them as he goes, while dreaming of finding a Papegena. The queen gives a magic flute to Tamino and magic bells (aka a portable phone reciever box with a crank handle to send out calls) to Papegino.
Through various events Papegino finds Pamina, but is discovered by a guard. The guard and Papegino frighted each other so much that the guard hands the keys shakily to Papegino, and in return Papegino hands a mine to the guard. The guard runs off the stage and there's a huge explosion past the curtains. Papegino releases Pamina and they go looking for Tamino.
At some point Papegino finds Papagina, a Leopord-skin clad asian girl that mops the floors of Sarastro's temple. When they are separated by the guards of the temple he uses his magic bells, first to make all the guards answer their cell phones, then sing into there cell phones about how danceable the ringtone is, and finally dance off stage. Then He follows the magic bells with the phone to his ear, until Papegena answers her cell phone and they sing to each other through the phones - "Pa, pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-gino,Pa, pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-gina!" I don't think Mozart could have imagined it done in an any more fun way. I never knew opera could be so entertaining.
In the above picture is everyone who went from the school. In the bottom picture is Ashley and I with our friend Manny Torres. He loved every second of the opera. He hardly stopped laughing and begged to know when we'll go again.
