By Pierre Ruhe

For the AJC

Mozart himself, in a dapper red coat and white powered wig, makes an appearance at the start of the Atlanta Opera's "The Magic Flute," one of many charming conceits in this convincing new production shared with Indiana University's professional-quality Jacobs School of Music.

Despite some opening night insecurities, all the fundamentals are in place. In Tomer Zvulun's stage direction, the singers react naturally to each other and communicate directly with the audience. The almost-capacity crowd Saturday night laughed merrily at the jokes and cheered mightily when the music turned athletic and epic. Arthur Fagen, a regular conductor with this company, brought out colors from the orchestra and paced the drama sympathetically.

It helps, too, that they had a good dragon. Puppets are in vogue in theater and opera these days, and this "Magic Flute," which premiered in Indiana in November, is wonderfully whimsical without being hollow -- a difficult balance. David Higgins, who runs the opera program at IU, designed the Masonic-styled backdrops, the quasi-Oriental costumes and the puppet animals, including a giant Chinese-style dragon that spooks the hero Tamino and sets the story in motion.

The Princess Pamina, Nicole Cabell, was the gem on stage. She's been an international star-in-the-making since she won the 2005 Singer of the World Competition in Cardiff, Wales, and her voice is world-class: at once creamy and radiant and full-sized. She doesn't pay much attention to words, alas, so her vocal characterizations tended toward the gorgeously generic.

Her aristocratic poise was ideally complemented by the dashing tenor Sean Panikkar, a Sri Lankan-American with a bright, focused tone, clear diction and, understandably, a fast-rising career. I hope the Atlanta Opera engages Cabell and Panikkar again soon.

Kathleen Kim, as the Queen of the Night, arrives on a glowing crescent moon and a Zodiac of stars. Her two big arias are the most freakishly brilliant pieces ever written for the human voice, and Kim delivered them with precision and cool elegance, her tone sounding forced only for the high Fs. If she was a hairline out of tune, it seemed the fault of the illness -- or perhaps the allergies to Atlanta's pollen -- that's running through the cast. Hugh Russell had almost no voice for the crucial comic role of Papageno, the sweetly daffy bird catcher. The imposing monarch Sarastro, Denis Sedov, had only a thread of his usual luxuriant basso profundo.

The oddest thing about this production is language: the singing is in original German, the spoken dialogue in English. It seemed more like a practical decision than a statement of artistic principal: the music comes off best in the original, yet the audience is brought in by the vernacular. The shift in language might once have seemed a rude linguistic dissonance, but in our modern à gogo culture, where we hold few standards beyond visceral pleasure, it all flowed smoothly.

Pierre Ruhe is classical music critic of www.ArtsCriticATL.com

OPERA REVIEW

Mozart's "The Magic Flute"

The Atlanta Opera. 7:30 p.m. April 27, 8p.m. April 30 and 3 p.m. May 2. Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, 2800 Cobb Galleria Pkwy, 404-881-8885, www.atlantaopera.org