- guardian.co.uk, Friday July 26 2002 01.59 BST
- The Guardian, Friday July 26 2002
Jacob Hogstrom as Papageno in The Magic Flute in Drottningholm
Baroque opera has never been more popular - well, not since the 1700s, at least. But while it is now generally acknowledged that "authentic" musical performance can make a work dynamic and fresh, would an opera staged in authentic conditions - no electric lighting, no computerised scene-shifting, no modern materials and, heaven forbid, no surtitles - ever work in the same way?
Every summer, one company attempts to answer this question. For the ultimate 18th-century operatic experience, head to the island of Lovon, outside Stockholm's suburbs, and to Drottningholm, where a small court theatre in the grounds of the royal summer palace flourished during the later 1700s. In more recent times, Ingmar Bergman was so taken with the place that he built a studio replica of it in which to film his version of The Magic Flute.
The theatre itself is unprepossessing, little different on the outside from the other buildings clustering around the palace. Yet this is probably precisely what led to its remarkable preservation. It was rebuilt in 1766 on the orders of Queen Lovisa Ulrika (its previous incarnation had burned down during a performance four years earlier) and expanded by her son, Gustav III. During his reign, there were frequently two operas or plays given a day; the actors and musicians had to live on site, sleeping in rooms near the auditorium. But in 1792 the "theatre king" was assassinated at a masked ball in the Opera House back in Stockholm proper - an event sensationalised by Verdi in his opera, The Masked Ball.
After Gustav's death, the theatre was without a patron; people started using it as a storehouse. It wasn't until 1922 that Swedish theatre historian Agne Beijer pointed out the building's origins and what it was likely to be hiding. Sure enough, inside the building was a complete collection of 18th-century theatrical machinery, including around 30 different sets of scenery, all in near-perfect condition.
It is this discovery that has made Drottningholm unique: any old place can mount "period" performances, but here the full experience can be re-created exactly. And what is really striking is the sophistication of the effects that can be achieved. There are machines for making wind and thunder sound-effects, and for lowering characters down from the flies on "clouds", but it is the set changes that have to be seen to be believed. With a single pull of a rope, one set of side wings are drawn off stage while the new panels simultaneously slide on in their place. The backdrop falls or is yanked upwards, and there you have it: a new set in seconds.
Originally, both stage and auditorium were candlelit. But the building is a tinderbox. It is said that the only person recently to have got away with bringing a naked flame in was Princess Margaret, because staff weren't sure how to ask her to extinguish the royal cigarette. A solution to the lighting problem had to be found, and it came in the form of an ingenious kind of electric candle. Each has a tiny bulb fixed on so loosely that when it gets hot it sways from side to side and appears to flicker.
In this soft light, the intimate auditorium, seating around 400, looks lavish. However, it is not quite all it seems. Lovisa Ulrika's money started to run out while the theatre was being built, and it had to be completed on the cheap. She chose the right architect, as Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz had more than a touch of Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen about him. Not enough money for marble scrolls under the boxes? Fine - only if you looked really closely would you realise he made them from papier-mache instead. No cash to spend on plush velvet curtains? Well, why not paint them on the doors? If you could run your hand along the ceiling you would find that the ornate "plasterwork" is completely flat, while the "marble" fireplaces in the outer rooms are looking rather sad and stony now that the dappled paint has peeled off.
These days, three operas are performed in the theatre each summer - mostly 18th-century works, although Tradgarden by Jonas Forssell, commissioned by the company, was premiered there in 1999. Directors can choose how much, or how little, they employ period gesture and stage technique, but they are unavoidably influenced by the setting. This year's programme introduced a new staging (by Asa Melldahl) of the work perhaps most strongly associated with the theatre, The Magic Flute, written in 1791 when the theatre was still operational. It has been a signature work for the company since 1975, when Bergman made his film. Sung in the work's first existing Swedish translation, dating from 1821, this production had its dark elements - the sinister jester kept by Sarastro among his rather foppish court undermined his role as the source of reason and truth - but there were lighter touches, too; Klara Ek's Papagena in particular was funny in any language.
There were some classy performances from the young, almost entirely Swedish cast, especially Camilla Tilling, singing a finely shaded Pamina, and Caroline Gentele, a soft-toned yet agile Queen of the Night. Mats Almgren didn't have quite the cavernous low notes for Sarastro, but Jakob Hogstrom was a bluff, likable Papageno, and the tenor Mathias Zachariassen a heroic if slightly heavy-handed Tamino. The Drottningholm orchestra - all bewigged and costumed and visible in the dim light of the auditorium - are a polished ensemble, and responded snappily to the brisk tempos set by the company's long-standing music director, Arnold Ostman.
Musical standards are high here; yet what was most striking was the way in which the work seemed vibrant and fresh to a modern audience while still so firmly rooted in its period setting. Can an audience's collective frame of mind ever be turned back to that in which works such as The Magic Flute were first received? Here in Drottningholm, it doesn't seem such an unattainable ideal.
