Magic Flute

Rhapsodic singspiel

The renowned Czech composer and conductor Petr Kofroň, the director Zdenek Plachý and the screenwriter Jiří Šimáček (authors of the ambitious production “Phantom or a Bloody Opera” presented in the Prague National Theatre) prepared the performance “Mozart’s Magic Flute” for the Brno City Theatre. This “rhapsodic singspiel” comes out of Mozart’s famous opera The Magic Flute just partially. (However, audiences will not be deprived of the most beautiful melodies of the Magic Flute – the famous aria of the Queen of the Night or the well-known duet of Papageno and Papagena.) The authors decided to introduce the spirit of the contemporary world in Mozart’s and Schickaneder’s original. Mozart’s original opera is sometimes regarded as so-called Masonic opera in which Mason Mozart disclosed more Masonic practices than it was allowed. The authors of the new adaptation developed a completely new scenario in which the empire of the Queen of the Night is governed by fascinating human principles such as human compassion, gratefulness, patience. On the other hand, Sarastro’s empire is admired for its education to self-sacrifice, solidarity, respect to laws and order. Thus, there is not the conflict of the empire of good and the empire of evil in the new presentation, but two empires of good conceived in different ways struggle for power. On this background, the famous love story of Tamino and Pamina sounds strong. Although they respect the foundations of the mentioned empires, they are divided tragically by them.

Actors speak, dance and sing in this new “rhapsodic singspiel”, viewers can admire brilliant and witty dialogues written directly for the actors of the Brno City Theatre. But that is not all!

For the first time in the history of the Czech theatre two genres will be united – the grand dramatic music presentation with an illusionistic show of “Karel Bush & Company”, one of leading European illusionists. Illusions great in their importance and size will be shown during the performance. For example, illusionist’s passage through a rotating aircraft propeller belongs to the top numbers of the world-class illusionism. This unique illusion cannot be seen on common European stages – but the stage of the Brno City Theatre Music Scene has been designed even for such technically difficult performances. All illusions make fixed parts of the scenario of this new extraordinary multimedia project.