Mozart's The Magic Flute
Barbe & Doucet (direction and design), Ryan Wigglesworth (conductor) – With David Portillo, Esther Dierkes, Marta Fontanals-Simmons...
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Cast
Renaud Doucet — Stage director
André Barbe — Set designer, costume designer
Patrick Martel — Puppet Designer
Guy Simard — Lighting designer
Kathleen Stakenas — Assistant director
Donna Stirrup — Assistant director
Caroline Wettergreen — Queen of the Night
Brindley Sherratt — Sarastro
David Portillo — Tamino
Sofia Fomina — Pamina
Björn Bürger — Papageno
Alison Rose — Papagena
Esther Dierkes — First Lady
Marta Fontanals-Simmons — Second Lady
Katharina Magiera — Third Lady
Jörg Schneider — Monostatos
Michael Kraus — Speaker
Program notes
Think you’ve already seen The Magic Flute? You haven't really seen it until you've seen the version of the explosive duo Barbe & Doucet, who invite us to what they call a “huge musical comedy”. At the Glyndebourne Festival under the direction of Ryan Wigglesworth, experience one of Mozart's most popular works in an ambitious production with “eleven sets and two years of preparation”.
Completed just months before its composer's untimely death at age 35, the Singspiel draws heavily on the codes of Freemasonry, of which Mozart was a member. As part of the search for his love Pamina, Prince Tamino undergoes different tests that lead him toward truth and away from the darkness of ignorance. In the words of Hegel, “The Kingdom of the Night, the Queen, the Kingdom of the Sun, the Mysteries, the Initiations, Wisdom, Love, the Tests, along with a kind of moral middle ground, which in its generality is excellent, all of that, combined with the depth, enchanting grace, and soul of this music, stretch and satisfy the imagination, and warm the heart”.
Photo: La Flute enchantée © Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. Photo Bill Cooper
