There is magic in this Die Zauberflöte -- the warmly glowing intonation of La Petite Bande, the pure Pamina of
Suzie LeBlanc, the idealized Sorastro of
Cornelius Hauptmann, the ardent Tamino of
Christoph Genz, the robust Papageno of
Stephan Genz, the lovely Papagna of
Marie Kuijken, the deeply knowing conducting of Sigiswald Kuijken, even the corny thundercrashes -- but there is also one huge drawback -- the spoken dialogue. The amount of spoken dialogue included has always been a crucial issue for recordings of Die Zauberflöte -- too little and the story is all but incomprehensible, too much and listeners may grow restless waiting for the characters to stop speaking to each other in German, especially if they themselves don't speak German. For the completists and German speakers, Kuijken has included all the spoken dialogue. While this has its charms --
Genz's Papageno's fright is quite convincing -- the dialogue stops the music dead in its tracks every three to five minutes. Depending on the listener, this will either delightfully enhance or fatally detract from what is otherwise a thoroughly beguiling Die Zauberflöte. Amati's sound is deep and clear, but a little reverberant and very live.