Seattle Opera to present a ‘Magic Flute’ that’s a bold spectacle

“The Magic Flute” has enchanted audiences ever since it opened in 1791, just months before Mozart’s untimely death. 

On the surface, “Flute” is a fairy tale about a prince who sets out to rescue a supposedly kidnapped princess — only to discover that both are destined for a journey of enlightenment. Along the way, the Queen of the Night loses her struggle to topple the high priest Sarastro, who is revealed to be a benevolent ruler.

But beyond its fantastical creatures, magical instruments, and heart-rendingly beautiful music, the opera unfolds as a labyrinth of symbols and possible allegorical meanings that have inspired countless interpretations. 

Opening on Feb. 22, Seattle Opera is presenting a boldly original take that has attracted sold-out audiences in opera houses around the world. This “Flute,” initially unveiled at Berlin’s Komische Oper in 2012, evolved from a collaboration between visionary Australian director Barrie Kosky and the British theater company 1927, which produces mixed-media live animation stagings. Its unprecedented success has made it one of the most frequently revived opera productions of the 21st century.

Kosky partnered with 1927’s directors Suzanne Andrade and Paul Barritt (illustrator/animation designer) to create a production that turns the singers into living parts of a cinematic spectacle, mixing live performance with projected animations and references to the world of silent film. 

A world of moving images

In lieu of conventional, three-dimensional sets, a single towering wall doubles as a film screen, with hidden openings from which singers emerge to interact seamlessly with ever-shifting animations — from the comic to the macabre — that are projected onto its surface. 

Meticulously timed animations make the performers resemble a surreal, living cartoon or a dreamlike piece of moving art. The characters are styled to resemble such silent film icons as Buster Keaton (the bird-catcher Papageno), Louise Brooks (Princess Pamina) and even F.W. Murnau’s gothic Nosferatu (the villainous Monostatos who keeps guard over Pamina). Allusions to German Expressionism and the Weimar-era aesthetics further enhance the 1920s vibe.

“Barrie Kosky and the 1927 team draw on a broad spectrum,” said Erik Friedman, the production’s revival director for Seattle Opera. “It goes beyond silent film, incorporating design elements from 1920s Berlin cabaret and even touches of Terry Gilliam’s cutout animations for ‘Monty Python.’ I think that range partly explains why it’s had such universal appeal.”

The esoteric Masonic symbols that Mozart’s librettist Emanuel Schikaneder wove into the opera are replaced with a fresh set of striking images: the Queen of the Night manifests as an imposing giant spider, while an animated cat accompanies Papageno in place of the customary bird cage. Even the titular magic flute is reconfigured into an animated sprite who accompanies the quest.

The production offers a way to sidestep some of the problematic stereotypes in “The Magic Flute,” such as the depiction of Monostatos as a Moor. It also turns the focus away from the power struggle between the Queen of the Night and Sarastro, which the libretto depicts in terms that are uncomfortably misogynistic.

“Barrie wanted to recreate the experience of coming to this piece for the first time, as the original audience would have encountered it, without any preconceived notions,” said Friedman. “If you look at Schikaneder’s original stage descriptions, he was thinking in terms of the 18th-century stage technology of painted drops and flats to indicate the locales of the scenes. But his descriptions of what the audience should see on them is quite cinematic and fantastic.”

Precision at every turn

This “Magic Flute” is as much a feat of timing as it is a visual marvel. With some 800(!) individual video cues, the performers must stay precisely synchronized with the projections from moment to moment. 

“It works a little like a Broadway musical in terms of how specific every person’s track has to be, both onstage and backstage,” said Friedman. “Every moment of every performer’s track is carefully coordinated with the video. In order for that to function, there’s a backstage choreography that allows the onstage choreography to happen.”

Several of the principals shared their experience of adding this new set of hurdles to the work of crafting their characters. 

Bass Insung Sim has sung Sarasto in this staging several times previously and even worked with Kosky on a revival of it in Berlin. The director’s intimate knowledge of the music helped instill confidence in learning the cues. “Barrie knows the roles word for word and understands what each singer feels and the vocal technique you need to produce that,” said Sim. 

“The most challenging part is that we are attached to the wall and interact with the animation of this dream world,” said baritone Rodion Pogossov, Seattle’s Papageno; he has already appeared in stagings of the Kosky production at Los Angeles Opera and the Metropolitan Opera. “We don’t see anything. So we have to remember all this choreography to be in time with the animation — for me, that’s where Papageno’s cat friend is jumping around on his head. Everything has to be precise.”

Soprano Camille Ortiz, singing Princess Pamina, is new to the Kosky production. “Many of our entrances are from the second floor, strapped into the wall with a harness very high up,” she said. “We have to do very specific movements — almost like miming — that are linked to our reactions to the character we’re engaging with, all while syncing with the projections and music. And our cues go by quickly. A lot of it really does feel like choreography.”

How do you rebound if you miss a cue? “With all the adrenaline and nerves of performing, sometimes things do malfunction,” Ortiz said. “The director showed us a video from an L.A. performance where one of the platforms got stuck and didn’t turn in time for the singer to start their line. You could hear him singing from backstage. But if you miss a cue, you just move on.”

Tenor Duke Kim is Seattle’s Prince Tamino, the young hero who is united with Pamina after they both complete the quest. He’s won acclaim for the role in the well-known Julie Taymor staging for the Metropolitan Opera but is also taking on the Kosky production for the first time. 

After his first few rehearsals, he described his reaction: “I’ve never done something like this before, but when I prepare for any opera, I like to map out landmarks for my staging beforehand — whether that is a gesture or an emotion or a reaction to my colleague. This production is much more detailed, so the map has many more turns, and you need absolute precision. But the process to prepare is similar.”  

Rehearsal time is standard — three weeks plus a week of tech — but far more repetitive than with a typical opera staging. “We’re doing a lot of repetition, because these movements are so specific,” said Ortiz. “Unlike other Mozart operas, the characters in ‘The Magic Flute’ are constantly popping in and out.”

For conductor Christine Brandes — also new to the production — the prospect of keeping the orchestra and singers in sync with the intricate staging initially seemed daunting. But once rehearsals began, her anxiety eased as she gained a deeper understanding of how the music is still able to drive the production.

“I realized that I am not controlled by the video. The video is controlled by the choices I make. There are two people to make sure the visual elements align with what is going on musically: one who follows the score and one who calls the cues,” Brandes explained. “So there’s a preset aspect, but there’s flexibility for my musical choices. It’s not the same as syncing to a film score. Plus, I’m a longtime fan of silent film, so I’m really enjoying this.”

Mechanical yet human

Although it’s been a repeated box office success and widely praised by critics, this “Magic Flute” has also faced criticism for overshadowing the singers. With the singers integrated so literally into a two-dimensional world, it becomes challenging for them to shape their characters through conventional interaction and gesture. The highly stylized approach, while visually striking, can also make it harder for audiences to form an emotional connection. Reviewing the most recent of LA Opera’s several restagings of the production (the company has presented three to date), for example, Seen and Heard International wrote: “the singers have a very limited range of physical and emotional tools at their disposal.”

Yet despite the heavy technical demands, Friedman insists that the humanity of Mozart’s opera remains at the center of Kosky and 1927’s vision. “Even though all the imagery we see is video, it’s all hand-drawn. It may be digitally manipulated to give movement to static images, but fundamentally, we’re looking at something created entirely by a person — not AI, not some soulless digital media.

“So even though we’re watching something digital, we’re actually experiencing something deeply analog. And I think that’s one of the reasons it communicates so intuitively and so strongly. Ultimately, ‘Flute’ is a very human story. This approach celebrates its theatricality.”