What I Love About SLO's Magic Flute

1) Phylia Poh's wild, imaginative costumes, especially the 3 genii, Queen of the Night and Monostatos's:

2) The high quality of singing and music-making, for "La Yuen"'s famous pianisimi, Tai Hsiao Chun's pitch perfect high notes (though the lower tessitura of the first aria sounded a little iffy, but she knocked the ball out of the park with her second scene), Lemuel dela Cruz as Monostatos who sang and camped really well in his biggest SLO role so far; even the minor cast of Eric Santos, Gabriel Pang, Ruben Aldea and Ronaldo Abarquez impressed me. The chorus sang exceptionally well.

3) The 9 girls who memorised and sang all the ensemble German music and mastered all that acrobatic stagework. Keep it up girls, you get full marks from me!

4)  Coherent direction of an incoherent plot: kudos to director Justin Way and conductor Alice Farnham for not only getting the huge cast through this long work but for inspiring their best performances. It was a really enjoyable evening.

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