The power of the very greatest conductors to reinvent whatever they conduct is one of music's great mysteries. Claudio Abbado's conducting is not the only reason to catch the production of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte being toured in Italy and Germany by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, but it is by a very long way the most important. Abbado's performance is, quite simply, mesmerising. It is so full of musical insight and operatic experience that every bar seems perfectly placed, every detail of the scoring perfectly illuminated.
Over his career Abbado has not acquired much of a reputation as a Mozart interpreter. But in 1999 he did conduct unforgettable performances of Don Giovanni in Peter Brook's production at the Aix en Provence festival. There he treated the score as a kind of chamber music, supervising the most delicate interplay of voices from stage and pit with the minimum of gesture. In this Zauberflöte his approach is bolder, larger-scale; he obtains a huge dynamic range from the Mahler CO.
The cast is predominantly young, and generally very good. Christoph Strehl and Rachel Harnisch are excellent as Tamino and Pamina, Nicola Ulivieri is a charming, personable Papageno, while Matti Salminen as Sarastro supplies the seniority, singing with such warmth he manages to make one of the most sanctimonious bores in opera almost human. There are excellent trios of ladies and boys, a feisty Queen of Night (Ingrid Kaiserfeld) and punchy contributions from the Baden-Baden Festival Chorus.
The production, directed by Claudio's son, Daniele Abbado, and designed by Graziano Gregori, is charming but a bit plain and simple, and generally too po-faced. There are too few cuts in the German dialogue, so the tension can sag until the music returns and Abbado senior takes charge again. A man near me brought along a score of the opera, and spent his time following that, only rarely glancing at the stage. Not the best way to experience live opera, but demonstrating the right priorities; there is so much more in this Zauberflöte than one has ever heard before.
· At the Festspielhaus, Baden-Baden, from May 14. Box office: 00 49 7221 3013 101.
