#HF11 Unadorned, austere and powerful "Flûte Enchantée" by Peter Brook

Papageno showed off without his feathers last night. Indeed, the entire direction of Une flûte enchantée was an unadorned pleasure. Sober. Integral. You can't get a Dutch audience wilder than with such an approach. Compliments, then, to Peter Brook.

The Muziekgebouw aan het IJ hosted the Dutch premiere of Brook's adaptation of Die Zauberflöte by Mozart. The production ran in February with the same cast at his own theatre in Paris, Le Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord. It was also the 85-year-old director's very last direction there. Is he saying goodbye to his immense career altogether? It is not yet clear.

Imagine a magical world. What does that look like in Brook's eyes? The stage scene was empty and dark, lit up by the pale reflection of scattered bamboo trunks. An alchemist, the actor William Nadylam, concocted a plot. Out of nowhere, he conjured up a flute. From his flowing hands and luring voice unrolled a tale of good and evil.

At least, good and evil as Mozart saw it. So between the two poles, nothing is fixed. If they are two poles at all. It's a theme Brook certainly feels at home with. In the simplified version, the ambiguity remained, but a lot also had to give way. The three ladies, the three boys, the three priests: gone. The libretto as Emanuel Schikaneder once intended it: gone. The orchestration of Mozart's music: gone.

The overture lasted no more than a few bars and was begun by Franck Krawczyk, on stage right at the grand piano. Besides the fact that Mozart's funny instrumentation disappeared because of this simplification, the performance unfortunately felt a bit like a pre-recital evening. On the other hand, the singers accompanied by Krawczyk did get all the attention.

Brook once stated in an interview that there are few good theatre directors and far fewer good opera directors. That, of course, is the fault of those singers. Marvel at a beautifully swelling tone, nothing more delightful than that. A director's art is to make singers forget they are singers.

In the mystical forest of Une flûte enchantée the seven singers and two actors moved effortlessly. Thomas Dolié was a natural Papageno with a warm sound. The role is wonderfully rewarding, and he took advantage of that. With rolling eyes and muttering curses, he followed Tamino into the realm of Sarastro, the laughs always on his hand.

Entirely at the other end of the spectrum was the Queen of the Night. With a spot-on tone and a light touch, Malia Bendi-Merad was the perfect embodiment of Brook's ideas last night. She enticed Tamino with innocent voice. She tore the loyal heart of her lost daughter, pressing her hands to her ears as her mother hysterically clamoured for revenge in Die Hölle Rache. She even lowered herself to collaborating with the sneaky Monostatos. Entirely logical were her actions to get Pamina back.

An attack by the alchemist on the bamboo forest ended the discord. In unison, the singers and actors played a kind of mikada game to regain peace and order. On the eve of the Cultural Baldies, this unaffected but very powerful performance was good fun.