Nicky Shaw

“Nicky Shaw’s minimalist, uncluttered set design intelligently facilitated the busy interchange of characters”

“The evening was, however, ultimately director Annilese Miskimmon’s triumph. To call her Magic Flute a feminist interpretation is tempting, but misleadingly reductive: she’s simply had the courage to unravel the assumptions about male domination and superiority which are fundamental to Emanuel Schikaneder’s libretto, and subject them to intelligent twenty first century investigation. Her Act Two in particular is a locus classicus of acuity and clarity, the most probing and revelatory I’ve seen in thirty years attending productions of the opera.”

“if you’re under the impression that Mozart’s personality was impish and impudent, then what would have won you over was the delightful, mischievous balancing act performed by director Annilese Miskimmon between comic and serious. Happily, her balance favoured the comic – many Magic Flutes have the life abruptly drained out of them by a stodgy reverence for Mozart’s Freemason-alluding temple brotherhood. Miskimmon channels Mozart and pokes fun at the order and at pomp in general”

“Under Miskimmon’s pacey direction, the design team wittily lights and sets the story in roughly 1912 – we see suffragettes, Monostatos is a London bobby. In all it precisely fulfils OTC chairperson Virginia Kerr’s wish that “an evening at the opera take us out of ourselves and lift our spirits.”

“It’s an interesting question how much Mozart bought into the misogyny that peppers the libretto of his great panto-opera … It’s left to Annilese Miskimmon, artistic director of what is now Ireland’s major company, Opera Theatre Company, to take it on. And she does it very entertainingly in this touring production, with nothing spurious and no hint of hectoring, by spinning the characters and action in a way that actually makes you think new things, a rare and welcome feeling in the opera house. Miskimmon manages to make the show funny and charming while retaining ats bite and a proper sense of mystery, a balance one longs for in the Flute but rarely finds. It’s energetically performed in Nicky Shaw’s clever trapdoors-and-ladders design, with smart visual larks on top of the slapstick and character-comedy … this Flute plays some sweetly profound tunes.”

“director Annilese Miskimmon … has gone for a feminist take on the story, including the Queen of the Night’s female contingent showing up at the end as a bunch of suffragettes and the priests of Isis and Osiris looking like censorious clergymen. But everything is handled with a light touch so it is all very entertaining, full of atmosphere, and funny without descending into slapstick”

“marvellously inventive … the imaginative sets and costumes contributed to the production’s zaniness”