Mozart Die Zauberflöte (the Magic Flute) opera to libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. Directed 2018 by Lydia Steier at the Großes Festspielhaus as part of the Salzburg Festival. Stars Matthias Goerne (Sarastro), Mauro Peter (Tamino), Albina Shagimuratova (The Queen of the Night), Christiane Karg (Pamina), Adam Plachetka (Papageno), Maria Nazarova (Papagena), Michael Porter (Monostatos), Klaus Maria Brandauer (Grandfather), Tareq Nazmi (The Speaker), and the Wiener Sängerknaben (Three Boys). Constantinos Carydis conducts the Wiener Philharmoniker and the Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor (Chorus Master Ernst Raffelsberger). Stage design by Katharina Schlipf; costume design by Ursula Kudrna; lighting by Olaf Freese. Directed for TV by Michael Beyer. Sung in German. Released 2019, disc has 5.0 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA
When you get hired to direct Zauberflöte, you rack your brains how to come up with something new. Lydia Steier cuts close to a quarter of the music. She adds parts for a piano, harpsichord, and organ along with Klaus Maria Brandauer (famous German actor) narrating the story as Grandfather reading to his 3 grandsons. The action seems to take place in a summer festival for street buskers. Papageno is seen lugging around a 30-lbs plucked turkey, which, per Richard Lawrence in the 2019 September Gramophone (pages 109-110) becomes a metaphor for the entire production. Love it or hate it. Mark Mandel, in the December 2019 Opera News (pages 57-58) appears to hate it for weak singers and unsavory emphasis on “militarism, weaponry, and violence” plus “scary circus” acts. But Mandel admits the production is “never dull.”
Here's a trailer from C Major:
And here’s a trailer from Salzburg:
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