About the work
It’s the most performed opera in the German-speaking region, an unusual – and masterly – blend of Viennese folk theatre and fairy tale, mythology and freemasonry mystique: Mozart’s THE MAGIC FLUTE remains a puzzle to this day. Did Mozart and his librettist Schikaneder switch horses from the Queen of the Night to Sarastro half way through? Is the message not one of distrust towards a supposedly infallible priesthood and its simplistic good-versus-evil ideology? Are some Mozart experts right when they talk of a disconnect between text and music? Whatever the answer, it’s the music that allows us to relate to the story’s contradictions. Far from denouncing the characters, it confers an existentiality on their conflicts.

Tamino is rescued from a dragon by three mysterious women, who show him a picture of Pamina, daughter of the Queen of the Night, who has been kidnapped by Sarastro, high priest of the Temple of the Sun. Besotted with the picture, Tamino is instructed by the Queen to team up with Papageno to rescue her. For a talisman he is given a magic flute, Papageno some magic bells. When they fail to steal Pamina back, the three of them are subjected to a series of perilous ordeals. Firstly, the men must prove they can keep silent. With Tamino not speaking to her, Pamina is about to stab herself but is saved by the three boy spirits, who lead her to Tamino. The pair then pass the remaining ordeals by fire and water. Meanwhile Papageno has acquired a lady friend, with whom he dreams of living happily ever after. Tamino and Pamina are inducted into the brotherhood of the Enlightened and embrace the ideals of nature, wisdom and reason.


About the production
The Günter Krämer production focuses on the antithesis between two worlds, represented in THE MAGIC FLUTE by sun versus moon and dark versus light but also by the oppositions of nature versus culture and male versus female. These double-sided coins are visualised on stage as the contrast between black and white, neither of which – like Yin and Yang – can exist without the other. The fairy tale character of THE MAGIC FLUTE is conveyed with directorial exhilaration and a remarkable set design, which have helped to make the production an audience favourite over the last 30 years.