Met Opera - The Magic Flute
A Holiday Presentation
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Thursday, January 5, 2023
Estimated Run Time - 1 Hours and 50 min.
Sung - English
The Met’s abridged, family-friendly version of Mozart’s musical fairy tale returns for the holiday season, with Maestro Duncan Ward making his company debut conducting Julie Taymor’s irresistible production. Tenors Ben Bliss and David Portillo share the role of Tamino, the noble prince on a quest to win the fair princess Pamina, sung by sopranos Joélle Harvey and Sydney Mancasola.
The cast also features baritones Joshua Hopkins and Chris Kenney as the bird catcher Papageno, soprano Aleksandra Olczyk as the Queen of the Night, and bass Soloman Howard as Sarastro.
Ticket Pricing
Adults - $20 Teachers - $10 Students & Children - Free of charge
5:00pm - Kids Screening (same length)
6:00pm - Courtyard open with small meals by Amalia Café & Live Music
7:00pm - Start of the Screening
To purchase your ticket, click the link below:
The Magic Flute - Holiday Presentation
World Premiere
Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden, Vienna, 1791. A sublime fairy tale that moves freely between earthy comedy and noble mysticism, The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte in the original German) was written for a theater located just outside Vienna with the clear intention of appealing to audiences from all walks of life. The story is told in a singspiel (“song-play”) format characterized by separate musical numbers connected by dialogue and stage activity, an excellent structure for navigating the diverse moods, ranging from solemn to lighthearted, of the story and score.
Creators
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91) was the son of a Salzburg court musician who exhibited him as a musical prodigy throughout Europe. His achievements in opera, in terms of beauty, vocal challenge, and dramatic insight, remain unsurpassed. He died three months after the premiere of Die Zauberflöte, his last produced work for the stage. The remarkable Emanuel Schikaneder (1751–1812) was an actor, singer, theater manager, and friend of Mozart who wrote the opera’s libretto, staged the work, and sang the role of Papageno in the initial run.
Setting
The libretto specifies Egypt as the location of the action. That country was traditionally regarded as the legendary birthplace of the Masonic fraternity, whose symbols and rituals populate this opera.
Some productions include Egyptian motifs as an exotic nod to this idea, but most opt for a more generalized mythic ambience to convey the other-worldliness that the score and overall tone of the work call for.
Music
Mozart and his librettist, Emanuel Schikaneder, created The Magic Flute with an eye toward a popular audience, but the varied tone of the work requires singers who can specialize in several different musical genres. The baritone Papageno represents the comic and earthy, the tenor Tamino and the soprano Pamina display true love in its noblest forms, the bass Sarastro expresses the solemn and the transcendental, and the Queen of the Night provides explosive vocal fireworks.
