Erin Morley, one of opera’s leading sopranos and a mother of three, stars in The Magic Flute as the intrepid princess Pamina, a role she first sang at the Met in 2018. She spoke recently with the Met’s Jay Goodwin about Julie Taymor’s beloved staging, the unique thrill of performing for family audiences, and raising young opera lovers of her own.

What makes the Met’s holiday presentation of The Magic Flute such a great show for families?
Erin Morley: I love an abridged opera, and opera in English. It’s a nice way in for a lot of people—adults as well as kids. Plus, I love a short night in the theater and an early bedtime. And the Taymor production is phenomenal. Kids really respond to her imagination with the costumes and the sets, the bright colors, the three boys flying across the top of the stage, the dancing bears, the birds on stilts. It’s just so magical. But I honestly think most operas are more kid-friendly than we give them credit for.

How old are your kids now?
My daughters are 14 and 9, and my son is 7, and they have come to all sorts of different operas and absolutely loved them. When I sang the Ring cycle at the Met, my 8-year-old sat through the entirety of Siegfried and had a great time. You wouldn’t think that a five-and-a-half-hour opera is a kid-friendly activity, but it’s all about dragons and magic rings and swords, and she ate it up. And of course my daughters both love The Magic Flute, and my son will be seeing it for the first time this year.

He must have been born right around the time you first sang Pamina in this production, in December 2018.
He was born November 1 of that year, and, I think we started rehearsals exactly a month later. We rented a big apartment and did Christmas in the city. It was very busy, and we got no sleep at all, but I have really beautiful memories of that time. We went to see the Rockettes, we saw Santa at the Plaza, we went ice skating in Central Park, and we went to the American Girl doll store many times. That was also when my daughters first saw The Magic Flute.

How does a family audience change the experience for you as a performer?
Some of my favorite moments in the opera house are from this show because having young people in the house brings a very special kind of energy. They are not shy about expressing when they love something or hate something. They are really honest about what’s funny and what’s not funny. So they’re a tough audience, but they’re also a really rewarding audience. And there’s nothing more exciting than seeing hundreds of kids in the seats and knowing that you’re making their first impression of opera in that moment.

Do you remember your own first impression of opera?
Well, I remember the first time I heard an opera singer in person, which was a really different experience from hearing it on the radio or a recording. There’s a power that you don’t hear every day in someone’s voice—not just volume power, but emotional power. So there’s something really, really special about giving that memory to a child, which you hope becomes a core memory for them. It’s really important for the art form for kids to have experiences like that.

What advice do you have for a young person who has that experience at The Magic Flute and is inspired to sing, to play an instrument, to maybe become the next Erin Morley?
Take every opportunity to develop your musicianship. Get every experience that you can possibly have. I was really fortunate to do a lot of different artistic things as a child, and all of those things fueled my creativity. I danced, acted in plays, did musicals, sang Broadway and jazz. My parents were so good to expose us to every different kind of music and the arts in general. We loved watching musical comedy sketches together, and my dad, who was a trombone player and a singer, even had his own funny musical skit that he would do. So don’t discount any style of music—take every opportunity and run with it.

How would you describe the princess Pamina, the character you sing in The Magic Flute?
She is a young woman who’s been through a lot of traumatic things, but who emerges victorious. It seems that everyone is against her and she has nobody on her side, so she really has to carve her own path. We all have been through tough things, so I think we all can relate to that struggle, and she becomes a sort of symbol of triumph over trauma. 

This production has become a beloved holiday tradition at the Met. What are your family’s holiday traditions?
We live in the small town of New Canaan, Connecticut, and there is one little block that has four or five churches, so it’s known as God’s Acre. Every Christmas Eve, like a scene straight out of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, everybody gathers around a big Christmas tree there and sings carols. There’s a brass band playing and everyone’s freezing, huddled together with their hats on and holding candles. It’s really a beautiful tradition. Also, my kids love writing their little letters to Santa, which we put in the fireplace and watch the ashes float magically up to the North Pole. It’s so much fun.

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Photos: Julie Taymor's The Magic Flute at The Met Opera

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