‘The return of The Magic Flute’

    

The Met

It’s almost time for The Magic Flute, Mozart’s Masonic opera, to return to The Met for its annual run. From the publicity:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s

The Magic Flute

The Metropolitan Opera

December 12-January 4

Tickets (from $35!) here

The Met’s family-friendly production of Mozart’s dazzling fairy tale returns, sung in English and running under two hours. Nimrod David Pfeffer and J. David Jackson share conducting duties, leading a standout cast in Julie Taymor’s magical staging. Tenors David Portillo and Duke Kim share the role of Tamino, the brave prince on a quest to win the clever princess Pamina, sung by sopranos Hera Park and Emily Pogorelc. The cast also features tenors Will Liverman and Sean Michael Plumb alternating as the luckless bird catcher Papageno. Sopranos Kathryn Lewek and Aigul Khismatullina alternate as the Queen of the Night. Basses Solomon Howard and Pectin Chen take turns as Sarastro.

Prior to the December 14 performance, children and families are welcome to join our Holiday Open House. The Open House is free to all ticket holders for the December 14 performance.

The Met

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.

The Met

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.

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 otherworldliness that the score and overall tone of the work call for.

The Met

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.

     

‘Mozart and More on Sunday’

    

Bro. Erik, Organist of my lodge and others, invites us to a free concert Sunday. From the publicity:

Bro. Erik Carlson will perform a free concert, “Mozart and MORE,” at the Church of Saint Thomas More in New York City Sunday, April 21 at four o’clock.

Included on the program will be Mozart’s Missa Brevis in G Major for choir and strings alongside works by Haydn, and others. A reception will follow.

Bro. Carlson is the Director of Music and the Organist at St. Thomas More. The church is located at 65 East 89th Street, between Madison and Park avenues.

     

‘The Magic Flute returns to The Met next month’

    

The Met

The new issue of my lodge’s monthly magazine reminds me that it’s almost time for The Magic Flute, Mozart’s Masonic opera, to return to The Met for its annual run. From the publicity:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s

The Magic Flute

The Metropolitan Opera

December 8-30

Tickets (from $37!) here

The Met’s family-friendly production of Mozart’s dazzling fairy tale returns, sung in English and running under two hours. Patrick Furrer and Gareth Morrell share conducting duties, leading a standout cast in Julie Taymor’s magical staging. Tenors Piotr Buszewski and Joshua Blue share the role of Tamino, the brave prince on a quest to win the clever princess Pamina, sung by sopranos Janai Brugger and Liv Redpath. The cast also features famed tenor Rolando Villazón reprising his uproarious portrayal as the luckless bird catcher Papageno, alternating with baritone Alexander Birch Elliott, and soprano Kathryn Lewek as the Queen of the Night, alongside basses Brindley Sherratt and James Creswell as Sarastro.

Prior to the December 10 performance, children and families are welcome to join our Holiday Open House. The Open House is free to all ticketholders for the December 10 performance.

The Met

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.

The Met

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.

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 otherworldliness that the score and overall tone of the work call for.

The Met

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.

     

‘Mozart’s Masonic opera at The Met’

   

The Met

It’s halfway through its three-week run already, but there still is plenty of opportunity to take in the Metropolitan Opera’s new staging of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Masonic opera” The Magic Flute. Actually, this is Die Zauberflöte, as it is a German-language production of more than three hours, as opposed to The Met’s annual Christmastime production of Julie Taymor’s English-language suitable-for-children confection.

Tickets, starting at $39.50, can be booked here. And this will be part of The Met’s Live in HD series in movie theaters. From the publicity:

One of opera’s most beloved works receives its first new Met staging in 19 years—a daring vision by renowned English director Simon McBurney that The Wall Street Journal declared “the best production I’ve ever witnessed of Mozart’s opera.” Nathalie Stutzmann conducts the Met Orchestra, with the pit raised to make the musicians visible to the audience and allow interaction with the cast. In his Met-debut staging, McBurney lets loose a volley of theatrical flourishes, incorporating projections, sound effects, and acrobatics to match the spectacle and drama of Mozart’s fable.

Kathryn Lewek

The brilliant cast includes soprano Erin Morley as Pamina, tenor Lawrence Brownlee as Tamino, baritone Thomas Oliemans in his Met debut as Papageno, soprano Kathryn Lewek as the Queen of the Night, and bass Stephen Milling as Sarastro.

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, a friend of Mozart who wrote the opera’s libretto, staged the work, and sang the role of Papageno in the initial run.

The Met

World premiere: Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden, Vienna, 1791.

Die Zauberflöte—a sublime fairy tale that moves freely between earthy comedy and noble mysticism—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. The composer and the librettist were both Freemasons—the fraternal order whose membership is held together by shared moral and metaphysical ideals—and Masonic imagery is used throughout the work. The story, however, is as universal as any fairy tale.

The Met

The libretto specifies Egypt as the location of the action. Egypt 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 many more opt for a more generalized mythic ambience to convey the otherworldliness that the score and overall tone of the work call for.

Music

Die Zauberflöte was written 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 comic and earthy are represented by the baritone, Papageno, while true love in its noblest forms is conveyed by the tenor, Tamino, and the soprano, Pamina. The bass, Sarastro, expresses the solemn and the transcendental. The use of the chorus is spare but hauntingly beautiful, and fireworks are provided by the coloratura Queen of the Night.

Please note that video cameras will be in operation during the May 31 and June 3 performances as part of the Met’s Live in HD series of cinema transmissions.

     

‘Magic Flute discussion’

    

California’s Michael Samu will be the next speaker in the series hosted by The Masonic Library and Museum of Pennsylvania. He will discuss Mozart’s Masonic opera The Magic Flute on Saturday, March 25 at 3:30 p.m. From the publicity:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is arguably the most famous classical composer of all time. He composed about 600 pieces of music, some of which were created specifically for Masonic degrees and events. Most people know of his achievements in music, but little is spoken of his Masonic or political life. His final opera, The Magic Flute, holds rich symbolism that leads the observer through an initiation ritual that is meant to enlighten and illuminate its audience. This lecture seeks to reveal the esoteric symbolism hidden within one of Mozart’s most misunderstood works.

Click here to attend virtually. Click here to attend in person.

Michael Samu

Michael Samu was born and raised in Joshua Tree, California, and has been a Master Mason since 2018. He works in healthcare as a phlebotomist, but also provides tarot card readings, writes articles on the occult and esotericism for the Philosophical Research Society Journal, and is the organist and lecturer-in-residence for Whittier Masonic Lodge 323. Bro. Samu leads the Whittier Masonic Study Club, which focuses on curating talks on the esoteric and philosophical aspects of Masonry.

     

‘Magic Flute at The Met’

    

The Met Opera

Bro. Mozart’s The Magic Flute will return to the Metropolitan Opera next month for its annual yuletide run. This, Mozart’s final opera, has its 230th anniversary this year, and The Met again is staging the popular Julie Taymor production (in English, less than two hours, puppets!).

I never understood how it became a Christmas thing, although it is child-friendly.

The Met Opera

You know the story is rife with Masonic symbols and themes. If you’ve never been, maybe plan a group outing for the lodge and families. Tickets start at $30.

The Met Opera

Exactly six months ago, BBC Music Magazine published a guide to its favorite recordings of the beloved work. Click here.

     

     

‘Wednesday arts update’

    

Six items for you in tonight’s arts update.

• Bro. Ryan recently put the finishing touch on his greatly anticipated portrait of Bro. Prince Hall.

If you have been following his progress on this via social media, you could feel justifiably amazed by his balance of creativity and respect for his subject. There is no way to know exactly what Hall looked like, so Ryan instead rendered contextual elements to tell the story. Items depicted in the foreground and background and, of course, Hall’s regalia and gavel tell a remarkable life story with a veracity you can count on.

Prints are available for purchase now. Click here.

• Bro. Erik LaMarca, of Kosciuszko Lodge 1085 and Shakespeare 750, is the subject of the recent Craftsmen Online, one of a number of digital magazines serving New York Freemasonry.

LaMarca’s photography will be on exhibit next month at Solas Studio in a show titled “Revelation: Sight Through Symetry.” Click here to enjoy a look at a few pieces.

• Bro. Scott J. Watson’s latest venture into art history conducts us to a lodge in eighteenth century Vienna. Mozart’s lodge, specifically.

I’m sure we’ve all seen the painting showing the great composer seated in lodge. I’ve used it here on The Magpie Mason a number of times over the years.

Watson explains what goes on in the image, and one thing particularly zapped me. Watson has us cast our eyes to the East, where hangs a painting I somehow never before thought about.

Let Royal Ark Mariners who have ears hear. And click here. Sign up for his newsletter too.

• There is a mural decorating downtown Mt. Vernon, Ohio that will make every Mystic Prophet smile:

Courtesy Marty Trent

Unveiled (See what I did there?) in November 2017, but brought to the Prophets’ attention a few days ago in social media, It is painted on the side of the former Masonic hall in the neighborhood, and is a tribute to the groups that contributed to the local social scene. The nearly 3,000-square-foot piece was painted by John Donnelly, an art professor at Mount Vernon Nazarene University.

• I had intended to post something about this last year, but when I saw the Wall Street Journal had beaten me to it, I kind of forgot about it.  Rothko Chapel, the landmark ecumenical spiritual space in Houston, has reopened, following a $30 million renovation that took almost a year.

The rehabilitation was mostly structural in nature, with the building being bolstered to withstand the hurricanes the region receives. Mark Rothko’s 14 paintings arrayed throughout the chapel now benefit from a new central skylight and modern interior lighting. On the grounds without the chapel, the landscape has been stripped of all sights except for Barnett Newman’s Broken Obelisk, the crystal-shaped shaft perched atop a pyramid that arises from a reflecting pool. Dedicated to Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1971, the artwork symbolizes the chapel’s purpose as a human rights locus.

Rothko Chapel marks its fiftieth anniversary this year. Click here for photos.

• And, finally—I can’t do this all night, you know—is the latest from Piecework magazine, which contains a brief article on aprons.

“Unfortunately for historians, makers of aprons did not sign their work,” writes Deborah Dwyer. “Newspapers of the period advertised professional embroiderers specializing in military and Masonic regalia; sign painters offered painted aprons, and stationers supplied engraved ones. Undoubtedly, family members made some aprons as gifts.”

Read all about it here.

     

‘The Magic Flute at The Met’

     
Unlike the previous, this edition of The Magpie Mason looks only four months into the future when The Met will continue its annual tradition of staging Mozart’s Masonic opera The Magic Flute at Christmastime.

Courtesy The Met

Click to enlarge.

The show will run December 15 through January 4. Tickets start at only $30.

Again it will be Julie Taymor’s production of the opera, meaning it is a very accessible presentation—in English and less than an hour and forty-five minutes long.

The story is a fairy tale, but what makes it Masonic are the ritual elements and symbols that will be obvious to the initiated eye. Enjoy.

From the publicity:

A beloved holiday tradition continues as Mozart’s delightful fairy tale returns in the Met’s abridged, English-language version for families, perfect for younger audiences, with no intermission and a running time of less than two hours. Lothar Koenigs conducts a dynamic cast of standout Mozarteans in Julie Taymor’s magical production, an enduring Met classic with its eye-popping puppetry and stunning visuals.

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.

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.

Courtesy The Met

Click to enlarge.

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 otherworldliness that the score and overall tone of the work call for.

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.

Of course the publicist here is mistaken about “the legendary birthplace of the Masonic fraternity,” but it is right to understand Egypt was central to a few Masonic rites that were active during Mozart’s lifetime and may have influenced him.

     

‘Philadelphia Opera’s Magic Flute’

     
You know it’s a small world when a Freemason in Florida alerts a New York City Mason to a Magic Flute production in Philadelphia, but here we are. (Thanks, Scott.)

Only two performances remaining at the Academy of Music, tomorrow and Sunday.

From the publicity:

In Mozart’s masterful comedy about love, truth, and the pursuit of enlightenment, Prince Tamino sets off to rescue Pamina, the beautiful daughter of the Queen of the Night, from the mysterious Sarastro. But, with the help of the bird-catcher Papageno and three Spirits as their guide, Tamino discovers an even bigger adventure, and is united with his love along the way. Celebrated co-directors Suzanne Andrade and Barrie Kosky present The Magic Flute in a playfully subversive, crowd-pleasing production that evokes a meeting between 1920s silent movies and David Lynch, with the singers performing amidst fanciful animated projections. Created by the British theater group 1927, the L.A. Times calls this Magic Flute “a stunning live-action cartoon. It is fun for the whole family.”

Full synopsis here.

Tonight at seven, there will be screenings of silent short films that inspired this Magic Flute staging. Click here.
     

‘Die Zauberflöte AND The Magic Flute at The Met this fall’

     
The Met is serving a double-shot of Mozart’s Masonic opera The Magic Flute this season. The annual holiday crowd-pleaser production, in English (less than two hours), will come in November, but Die Zauberflöte, the German staging (more than three hours), will open in about a week and a half with tickets starting at 25 bucks. From the publicity:

The Metropolitan Opera

Die Zauberflöte

September 27 through October 14

Tickets here

Courtesy The Met

Music Director Emeritus James Levine conducts the full-length German version of Mozart’s magical fable, seen in Julie Taymor’s spectacular production, which captures both the opera’s earthy comedy and its noble mysticism.

Die Zauberflöte—a sublime fairy tale that moves freely between earthy comedy and noble mysticism—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. The composer and the librettist were both Freemasons—the fraternal order whose membership is held together by shared moral and metaphysical ideals—and Masonic imagery is used throughout the work. The story, however, is as universal as any fairy tale.

Courtesy The Met

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91) died prematurely three months after the premiere of Die Zauberflöte. It was his last produced work for the stage. (The court opera La Clemenza di Tito had its premiere three weeks before Die Zauberflöte, on September 6, 1791, though its score was completed later.) The remarkable Emanuel Schikaneder (1751-1812) was an actor, singer, theater manager, and friend of Mozart. He suggested the idea of Die Zauberflöte, wrote the libretto, staged the work, sang the role of Papageno in the initial run and even recruited his three young sons to join the roster.

The libretto specifies Egypt as the location of the action. Egypt 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 many more opt for a more generalized mythic ambience to convey the otherworldliness that the score and overall tone of the work call for.

Courtesy The Met

Die Zauberflöte was written 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 comic and earthy are represented by the baritone, Papageno, while true love in its noblest forms is conveyed by the tenor, Tamino, and the soprano, Pamina. The bass, Sarastro, expresses the solemn and the transcendental. The use of the chorus is spare but hauntingly beautiful, and fireworks are provided by the coloratura Queen of the Night.
     

‘Bergman’s Magic Flute: beauty, intelligence, wit, and fun’

     

Courtesy Sveriges Radio

The Metropolitan Opera and the Film Society of Lincoln Center will co-host an outdoor screening of Ingmar Bergman’s adaptation of The Magic Flute on Friday, August 25. From the publicity:


The ninth Summer HD Festival features nine thrilling performances from the Met’s Live in HD series of cinema transmissions—plus a special pre-festival screening of Ingmar Bergman’s classic 1975 film version of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, a co-presentation with the Film Society of Lincoln Center. The festival runs from August 26 through September 4, with more than 3,000 seats set up in front of the opera house each night, as well as additional standing room around Lincoln Center Plaza.

Friday, August 25, 8 p.m.

The Magic Flute

Courtesy Sveriges Radio

Director Ingmar Bergman was a lifelong fan of Mozart’s late operatic masterpiece Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), having seen the work as a young boy. He went on to create a cinematic version of the opera, sung in his native Swedish, which blends 18th century stagecraft with fairy-tale adventure. For the film, maestro Eric Ericson conducted the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and a cast that included a number of young Scandinavian artists, most notably baritone Håkan Hagegård—who sang nearly 90 performances for Met audiences—as the charming bird catcher Papageno.

Approximate running time: 2 hours 15 minutes


Vincent Canby’s review in the New York Times of November 12, 1975:

THE MAGIC FLUTE
By Vincent Canby

It’s grand opera. It’s a Freemasonry fable. It was made for Swedish television and reportedly cost about $650,000, which would barely cover the expenses of a Hollywood motorcycle movie. It’s based on a work with a magnificent score but with a libretto whose second act seems to have forgotten how the first act started.

Yet Ingmar Bergman’s screen version of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, which opened at the Coronet yesterday, is an absolutely dazzling film entertainment, so full of beauty, intelligence, wit, and fun that it becomes a testimonial not only to man’s possibilities but also to his high spirits.

All of the best Bergman films have been about some aspect of love (often its absence), but The Magic Flute is virtually an act of it.

It is, first and foremost, Mr. Bergman’s exuberant tribute to Mozart’s genius, with full, amused recognition of the inconsistencies in the Schikaneder libretto. Mr. Bergman hasn’t set out to interpret The Magic Flute but rather to present it as it originally was, bursting with the life of an exquisite stage production as it would look within the physical limitations of an eighteenth-century court theater.

This approach recalls the Laurence Olivier production of Henry V, though there are marked differences. The Bergman Flute begins as if it were simply the record of a single performance of the opera on a golden summer evening in a theater set in a royal park. During the overture the camera scans the faces in the contemporary audience, all of whose members, with several obvious exceptions, look exceptionally, particularly Swedish. The recurring expression of the film itself is that of an enraptured little girl (said to be the director’s daughter) as she watches the opera unfold.

As the overture ends and the curtain goes up, the camera slides over the footlights into a magical world of painted backdrops and other eighteenth-century stage conventions. Unlike the Olivier Henry V, the Bergman Flute never moves through the painted backdrops into a realistic world beyond. Though the film, after having established its stage conventions, enlarges upon them and, once or twice, abandons them when it suits the director’s purpose, the Bergman production is virtually a hymn in praise of theatricality and the efficacy of art.

At the opera’s intermission, the camera catches Tamino and Pamina, the opera’s two young lovers, playing chess in a dressing room, while the evil Queen of the Night smokes languidly under a backstage No Smoking sign. Mr. Bergman, who loves Mozart and the theater, has special fondness for the performers who work so hard for our joy.

The Magic Flute was first performed in a theater near Vienna on September 30, 1791, just a few weeks before Mozart died. Though Don Giovanni is the grandest of Mozart’s operas, The Magic Flute is the more ideally romantic, the work of a man who, while dying, was able to compose the kind of profoundly lyrical and witty music that almost convinces a lot of people—including me—that opera should begin and end with Mozart.

Mr. Bergman treats the odd Schikaneder libretto fairly straight, neither apologizing for it nor patronizing it. Tamino, the young prince who, in the first scene, is charged by the Queen of the Night with the rescue of her daughter from the wicked sorcerer, Sarastro, winds up by becoming a member of Sarastro’s mystical priesthood, the members of which are the protectors of truth, beauty, and wisdom. Somewhere near the end of the first act, the Queen of the Night has become the villainess of the piece, and The Magic Flute has turned into what was, in its day, quite bold propaganda for Freemasonry.

I hesitate to say even this much about the story of The Magic Flute since it gives no indication of the opera’s phenomenal beauty and good humor. Reduced to its showbiz essentials, it’s about the triumph of the perfect love of Tamino and Pamina, the daughter of the vengeful Queen of the Night, with the help of a little magic and a lot of steadfastness of purpose.

The aural quality of the production is superb. Mr. Bergman recorded the music before he began shooting the film, thus allowing the actors to lip-synch the lyrics (which are in Swedish, not German) instead of belting them out on-camera. The system works beautifully because of technological magic I don’t understand and because the actors are lip-synching their own voices.

He has also found singers who both look and sound right, including his Tamino (Josef Kšstlinger), who resembles a prince in a Maxfield Parrish mural, and a beautiful Pamina (Irma Urrila), who looks like a young Liv Ullman. He is especially fortunate, too, in his choice of a Papageno (Håkan Hagegård) who manages to be simultaneously robust and comic without ever being opera-silly.

The film is full of memorable moments, some moving, as in the first-act Pamina-Papageno duet, and some gravely funny, as when three little boys in a festively decorated eighteenth-century balloon caution Tamino to be steadfast, silent, and wise, which are probably the three things that any three little boys you or I know would find most difficult to do. The camera, in close-up, never misses a gesture.

Make no mistake: This Magic Flute is no uneasy cross-breed of art forms. It’s a triumphant film in its own right.

THE MAGIC FLUTE (MOVIE)

Directed by Ingmar Bergman; written (in Swedish, with English subtitles) by Mr. Bergman, based on the opera Die Zauberflšte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Emanuel Schikaneder; cinematographer, Sven Nykvist; edited by Siv Lundgren; music by Mozart; production designer, Henny Noremark; produced by Mans Reutersward; released by Svergies Radio/TV2. Running time: 135 minutes.

With: Ulrik Gold (Sarastro), Josef Kšstlinger (Tamino), Erik Saedén (Speaker), Birgit Nordin (Queen of the Night), Irma Urrila (Pamina), Håkan Hagegård (Papageno), and Elisabeth Erikson (Papagena).
     

'The Magic Flute on the radio today'

   
I really wish I had something profound and original to write today on this 300th anniversary of the public debut in London of Freemasonry's first Grand Lodge of England, but I do not. (I had submitted a brief historical essay on the subject to the New York Times' Op-Ed Page, but to no avail.)

But here is some news from WQXR: the classical music radio station (formerly owned by the Times) will broadcast Mozart's Masonic opera The Magic Flute at 1 p.m. in its "Saturday at the Opera" series. This is the Lyric Opera of Chicago production.

Coincidence or international Masonic conspiracy? You decide!
   

‘A little Masonic music at Mostly Mozart’

     
Lincoln Center’s annual Mostly Mozart program will begin July 25, and it won’t take long to get into the Masonic material. On Friday, July 28 and Saturday, July 29, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, led by Conductor Edward Gardner, will deliver a performance of Mozart’s, Beethoven’s, and Schubert’s music. From the publicity:

Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert

July 28 and 29 at 7:30 p.m.

David Geffen Hall

Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra

Edward Gardner, conductor

Jeremy Denk, piano

“Luminous atmosphere and edge-of-the-seat excitement.”
– The Times (U.K.) on Edward Gardner

“Irrepressibly charismatic...a joy to watch.”
– New York Times on Jeremy Denk

Maestro Edward Gardner’s “powerful, impassioned conducting” (Seattle Times) finds its match in the “irrepressibly charismatic” pianist Jeremy Denk (New York Times) in a program that moves from dark to light. Mozart’s austere work, composed for his fellow Freemasons, and Beethoven’s supremely lyrical concerto give way to a sunlit Schubert finale.

Mozart: Masonic Funeral Music

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4

Schubert: Symphony No. 5

Click here for more festival information. Click here for tickets to either of these concerts.

There will be pre-concert recitals (Shubert: Introduction and Variations on Trockne Blumen for flute and piano) by Jasmine Choi, flute; and Roman Rabinovich, piano at 6:30.

According to the indispensible website of the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon:

Mozart’s Masonic music falls into three broad categories:

• music he wrote specifically for the lodge;
• music intended for the public but built on Masonic themes; and
• music he wrote for other purposes, but which was adapted, either by himself or others, for Masonic use.

K.477 Maurerische Trauermusik (Masonic Funeral Music). Composed in Vienna on 10 November 1785 for a Lodge of Sorrows held by Lodge Crowned Hope a week later for the funerals of Bro. Georg August, Duke of Mecklenburg-Streletz and Bro. Franz, Count Esterhazy of Galantha.