Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” to be presented tonight will be an opera like no other, and “we can promise, you won’t be bored”, the production’s opera director Philip Bröking promised yesterday.
Originally premiered in 1791, The Magic Flute is about the Queen of the Night persuading Prince Tamino to rescue her daughter Pamina from captivity by the high priest Sarastro. Instead, Tamino learns the high ideals of Sarastro’s community and seeks to join it. Then Tamino and Pamina undergo severe trials of initiation, which end in triumph, with the Queen and her cohorts vanquished. The earthy Papageno, who accompanies Tamino on his quest, fails the trials completely but is rewarded anyway with the hand of his ideal female companion Papagena.
The performance tonight at the Macau Cultural Centre (CCM) is a presentation by Komische Oper Berlin, and which originally premiered in November 2012 under the co-direction of artistic director Barrie Kosky and Suzanne Andrade of British theatre group 1927.
Photos of The Magic Flute taken by Iko Freese_drama-berlin.de are provided by the Cultural Affairs Bureau.
(From left to right) Komische Oper Berlin’s Associate Director Tobias Ribitzki, Opera Director Philip Bröking, soprano Kim-Lilian Strebel and tenor Adrian Strooper react during yesterday’s meet-the-press session at Macau Cultural Centre. Photo: Monica Leong
