>From Martin Bernheimer's Financial Times review of the Julie Taymor
"Zauberflote" at the Met:

  "...While the basic plot remains, the focuses have changed.
  The sage Sarastro now resembles a misplaced Mikado-statue.
  The nasty Queen of the Night masquerades as a Cruella de Vil
  with flapping wings.  Sweet and pure Pamina becomes a robust
  peasant.  Papageno resorts to Russian-clown antics.  Despite
  references to his dark skin (politically incorrect, of course),
  the erstwhile Moor, Monostatos, emerges as a nasty avian
  caricature (color him pink).

  "James Levine ensures grace and propulsion in the pit, but a
  generally weak cast does him few favours.  The participants
  include Matthew Polenzani (a conscientious Tamino), Dorothea
  Roschmann (a brash Pamina), L'ubica Vargicova (a shrill,
  stratospherically inaccurate Queen), Kwangchul Youn (a
  mumbly-grumbly Sarastro), Rodion Pogossov (a terminally cute,
  novice Papageno) and Volker Vogel (appropriately named, and
  deft too, as the Big Bird villain).  Nearly everyone mangles
  the German text (English translation, anyone?).  Still, the
  individuals work hard, occasionally with success, to be assertive
  in Taymor's wild world of masks, kites, symbols, geometric
  patterns, pomp processions, sight gags and hand-me-down Asian
  rituals.  Some of this "Flute" is indeed magical.  Much of it
  makes Noh sense."

=> www.ft.com

Janos Gereben
www.sfcv.org
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