Mozart's The Magic Flute

An arresting and star-studded production of Mozart’s Singspiel nonpareil: in the 2013 Baden-Baden Easter Festival, a group of outstanding soloists joined Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker for Die Zauberflöte in an attractive and naturalistic staging by Robert Carsen.

Premiered just months before Mozart’s tragic death in late 1791, Die Zauberflöte (“The Magic Flute”) is one of the composer’s most enigmatic and captivating musical creations. Inspired by a potpourri of different sources—medieval romance, scholarly essays, Viennese popular theater, and Freemasonry, to name just a few—the work grew out of a collaboration between Mozart, his friend Emanuel Schikaneder (who wrote the libretto), and Schikaneder’s theatrical troupe. A great success, by the mid-1790s it had already been performed hundreds of times. This compelling and modern production stars Pavol Breslik as Tamino, Kate Royal as Pamina, Michael Nagy as Papageno, Ana Durlovski as the Queen of the Night, and Annick Massis, Magdalena Kozena, and Nathalie Stutzmann as a stellar casting of the Three Ladies.