Double whammy from Opera Siam

Opera Siam – Bangkok’s mini-powerhouse of classical music – produced two events back to back for the Christmas-New Year holiday that really drummed up excitement for lovers of upscale musical arts in the Big Mango.

The first was the three-performance run of “The Magic Flute” directed by Somtow Sucharitkul and conducted by Trisdee na Patalung, with a Thai and international cast. 

The third show was sponsored by the BMA as a free treat for senior citizens and their families, many of whom had never attended an opera. 

First, Trisdee’s music direction was unfailingly idiomatic and precise. It might be recalled that Trisdee’s 2006 “Magic Flute”, which received rave international reviews, was what propelled the young conductor onto the global conducting circuit. If anything, this latest interpretation – abetted by a high-profile cast and an enthusiastic and more youthful orchestra – was more penetrating and mature.

The production was characterised not only by top Western artists like Falko Honisch as an impetuous Papageno, Emilio Pons as a powerful Tamino (though a bit of a “sobber”), and the large-voiced Damian Whiteley as Sarastro, but most particularly in the large numbers of Thais awarded major roles. 

Monique Klongtruadroke was a wild Queen of the Night, though her voice is perhaps more in the “soubrette” Fach. She made the most of it and hit a thrilling sequence of top Fs. On the third night (this reviewer saw two of the three performances) the role of Papagena was hilariously played by the transgender JC Manar – something that has probably never occurred in the opera’s 250-year history.

A match for Honisch’s Papageno was Nadlada Thamtakanom as Pamina. It seemed to most of the opera experts present that this performance was a defining moment for the beautiful, charismatic young lyric soprano, and that a world-class career was being seized and embraced, much as Trisdee had done with the conductor’s role in this opera eight years before.

Of Somtow Sucharitkul’s concept for this production, one must say first that “The Magic Flute” and its bizarre plot actually “made sense” – a rare feat. 

Somtow re-imagined the opera as a kind of mass dream or hallucination, in which the denizens of an upscale Bangkok corporate headquarters where all become their fantasy selves in order to work out their real-world conflicts. The CEOs are squabbling, the “Devil Wears Prada”-like Queen of the Night is surrounded by sycophants and the charwoman, chauffeur and young executive are pining over a cyber-love. 

The numerous Thai touches (tuk-tuks, elephants, a fantasy ship sailing straight off the “Mahajanaka” set) made the dream world exotic enough that the production should sell well overseas. It is for once a fresh take that genuinely adds something meaningful to the thousands of interpretations that already exist.

One day after the “Flute” wrapped, the Siam Sinfonietta under the direction of Somtow and Trisdee performed its annual New Year Concert, this time under the aegis of the National Legislative Assembly. This concert, adapted from the Viennese tradition with a twist of Thai, has become a mainstay of the Bangkok scene. But this, its third incarnation, was fuller, more enthusiastically received and even more fun than the last two years.

Nadlada, seen as Pamina the day before, now put on several stunning gowns to perform music by His Majesty the King (powerfully arranged with lush Straussian orchestration by Somtow) and to premiere a new coloratura-style version of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s “Happiness Song”.

Trisdee conducted many favourites, such as the “Blue Danube” and “Tritsch-Tratsch”, as well as an electrifying rendition of music by Pantawit Kiangsiri composed for the film “The Legend of King Naresuan V”. Many remarked that this was the first time music from a Thai film was performed in a symphonic concert. 

Trisdee also collaborated with Thanachai “Pod Moderndog” Ujjin and “Thailand’s Got Talent” star Myra Molloy, as well as conducting an excerpt from Somtow’s “Suriyothai” ballet. Violinist Tanayut Jansirivorkul, a student of Midori, flew in from Los Angeles to do the solo. Andrew Biggs emceed with wit in both Thai and English.

Somtow conducted two movements from Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. The Sinfonietta played with panache and precision. About five times during the evening, the concert was interrupted by a thunderous standing ovation. 

These two events demonstrated clearly that classical music has come to stay. It is part of the national cultural fabric and, while it may have its origins in the West, it is being transformed here into something very new and thrilling.

 

Janice Koo is a freelance critic who writes about classical music in Southeast Asia.