Salzburg 2006 Magic Flute DVD - Warning!

I rented this DVD (well, the first half of it) from Netflix. The First Act is fine, but there is a 'Making of' bonus that I want to warn you about -- hold on to your heart with both hands before you watch Pape. He's outdoors in Salzburg, green, gorgeous summer day, in jeans and a jeans jacket, a dweller of the stratosphere or the mesophere, decidedly not one of us mere earth mortals. He talks (German w/ subtitles) about Sarastro and says nothing really new except that unlike other characters (he plays?) Sarastro doesn't evolve or 'transform' during the play (I read somewhere that he finds him boring). Believe they cropped the picture to not show the cigarette he is smoking - occasionally you see the smoke waft upward. The video shows each of the main characters and Muti. When they show Pape rehearsing to a piano with Pamina, he is singing I think-the brat-an octave lower than in the opera. When it gets a little low for him (remember it's an octave lower) he just sings a little harmony instead. Guess it was too early, he wasn't rehearsed or warmed, all of the above, but the result is delightful. There is a line in Act One when Sarastro is singing to Pamina about how he knows she loves someone, and a woman needs a man to keep her in line lest she get too 'uppity,' which sounds very sexist of course. But I think it's really a lamentation on having done battle (and love) with the Queen of the Night and found that woman, at least, very uppity indeed!

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