Recommended Reading
Compiled by Peter Russell
Let's just get it out of the way: there is no perfect recording of this masterpiece, or, at the very least, there isn't one that seems destined to please all tastes. Mostly, it's a matter of each recording, no matter how well conducted, staged, or otherwise sung, that doesn't feature at least one performance that is sufficiently flawed or controversial as to sharply divide opinions.
Karl Böhm's 1965 recording for Deutsche Grammophon has one of the strongest all-around casts (Fritz Wunderlich, Evelyn Lear, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Roberta Peters, Franz Crass), and a warm, autumnal glow.
The first of Sir Georg Solti's two complete recordings of Zauberflöte for DECCA dates to 1969, and is both preferable to his 1990 remake and an interesting interpretation in its exceptional intensity. Still, quibblers might find the otherwise lovely Pilar Lorengar's Latinate vibrato too exaggerated for Pamina, while others might opine that Cristina Deutekom, however mettlesome an instrument she possesses for the Queen of the Night, has an off-puttingly idiosyncratic approach to coloratura singing.
Wolfgang Sawallisch's 1972 EMI recording with the forces of the Bavarian State Opera has a distinct advantage in that all of his principals are at the very least competent singers of the era who are also natives of the German language. In particular, Edda Moser as the Queen and Kurt Moll as Sarastro are outstanding here: as fine as any interpreters on record.
Among videos of live performances in big-scale opera houses, it's a toss up between two equally good, but very different versions: a 1983 performance at the Bavarian State Opera led by Sawallisch on Philips, directed by August Everding, and the 1992 Deutsche Grammophon tape of a Met production conducted by James Levine and designed by David Hockney. Both offer strong casts and attractive visuals. The Munich version, designed by Jürgen Rose, is strongly evocative of the Vienna of Mozart's day; Hockney applies his distinctive artistic palette to conjuring the fairy-tale Egypt in which the opera is set.
Those looking for a more modern interpretation might want to investigate a David McVicar production taped by Naxos at Covent Garden in 2003. In this frequently somber staging, stand-outs include the warm, womanly Pamina of Dorothea Röschmann; Diana Damrau's frightening and eerily accurate Queen; and Simon Keenlyside's Papageno, more serious than most yet still completely winning and adorable. It may seem odd to recommend as an after-thought a studio film in Swedish with an uneven cast, considerable cuts, and lots of rearranging of Mozart's music, yet in many ways the version directed by Ingmar Bergman in 1975 for Home Vision offers a warmth, humanity, and humor that uniquely captures what one imagines Mozart and Schickaneder had in mind.
Note: Concerning these recommendations for audio and video recordings, especially regarding audio recordings, it is critical to bear in mind that recordings go in and out of print constantly. If a recording is described herein as ?currently out of print,? it may again be available within the coming year, so it is always worthwhile to seek things out.
