Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The Magic Flute

Mozart wrote his last opera to the libretto of Emanuel Schikaneder, in 1791, only months before his death. Its magic, fairy-tale story, hard to pigeonhole in terms of genre, offers a play filled with fantasy, humour, but also philosophy. The characters of the Prince Tamino, the Princess Pamina, the wise Sarastro, lord of the Empire of Light, the wicked Queen of the Night who reigns over her nocturnal kingdom, and last but by no means the least, the merry bird-catcher Papageno, have won over audiences around the globe for more than two centuries, bringing out the same questions over and again: namely, is Die Zauberflöte a eulogy of free masonry? or does it rather embody Mozart’s credo of the triumph of good over evil? or again, is it “only” a fantasque tale destined for the lower-class audience of the Theater an der Wien whose then manager was Emanuel Schikaneder? For it was actually he who came to Mozart with the idea of composing Die Zauberflöte, since he knew only too well that the patrons of his theatre were most attracted to plays packed with magicianship.

No wonder that the opera’s very ambiguity has prompted stage directors to engage in the widest variety of symbolic interpretations. At the Prague State Opera, Die Zauberflöte is a magical and enigmatic fairy tale conveying in a poetic and most lapidary way the message of the triumph of Order over Chaos, along with the belief in the qualities of dignity and moral integrity as the highest goals of society. The production of Die Zauberflöte staged by Ladislav Štros won the Prague State Opera repeated plaudits in Japan (in 1996, 1998, 2000, and 2005).

Premiere: Oct 20, 1995

Response in the press