2:00 pm| $12, $10 members, $6 children | 150 minutes including one intermission
A most enchanting opera in a most enchanting setting is what you can expect to experience when you come to see the cinema version of the Bregenz Festival’s production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s beloved The Magic Flute. The 2013 production on the Bregenz Festival lake stage impresses the audience with a fantastic setting framed by three dog-dragons, each of them more than sixty feet in height. Staged by David Pountney, the production stars Norman Reinhardt as Tamino, Bernarda Bobro as Pamina, Daniel Schmutzhard as Papageno, Denise Beck as Papagena, Alfred Reiter as Sarastro and Ana Durlovski as the Queen of the Night—supported by the Prague Philharmonic Choir and the Vienna Symphony. The screening will be in German with English subtitles.
What begins like a fairy-tale turns into a whimsical fantasy halfway between magic farce and Masonic mysticism: The Magic Flute links a love story with the great questions of the Enlightenment, juxtaposes bird-catcher charm with queenly vengeance, and bewitches the listener with music that mixes cheerful melodies, lover’ arias, show-stopping coloraturas and mysterious chorales. Mozart’s opera premiered in 1791 and is one of the most frequently performed operas in the world.
The amazing set was designed by Johan Engels. Marie-Jeanne Lecca designed the costumes and puppets. Berlin’s “Tagesspiegel” wrote about the production, “David Pountney finds stunning answers to the everlasting questions surrounding The Magic Flute.” This screening is made through special arrangement with Unitel.