Fifteen or sixteen
years ago, I loved a series of books about an archaeologist (and little-known
poet) called Cairo Jim who had
as companions a blue-and-gold macaw and a telepathic ‘wonder camel.’ The
brain-child of author Geoffrey McSkimming, the intrepid trio criss-crossed the
once-ancient world, foiling the nefarious schemes of Captain Neptune Bone,
restoring wrongs to rights, discovering immeasurable wonders and falling in
love with Jocelyn Osgood. My favourite was the very first volume
in the long-running series, Cairo Jim
& Doris in Search of Martenarten – there was something about it that
grabbed my nine-year-old imagination and kicked it into the stratosphere. There
was adventure by the bucketload, sand (lots of sand), and some very silly puns;
it was almost like an Errol Flynn film, or the Indiana Jones films, except in a
book, for younger readers. Like a lot of kids (and, I suppose, adults too), I
loved the mystery and intrigue that surrounded Ancient Egypt, all the gods and
tombs and treasures, the mummies wrapped in kilometres of bandages, the
colossal temples, pyramids, statues. Once I discovered the series had ended (at
least for the time-being, or so we are reassured), I read them all again, and
‘Martenarten’ is still the best.
Imagine, then, my
delight when I discovered Opera Australia’s regional
touring production for 2014 was a new version of Mozart’s immortal The Magic Flute,
set in 1930s Egypt Hollywood B-movies and Saturday
afternoon serials aside, this Magic Flute,
directed and adapted by Michael Gow, is full of the adventure, danger, romance
and magic that Mozart’s music so perfectly captures, and is an inordinate
amount of fun.
