Mozart: The Magic Flute

This is an easy review. DO NOT MISS THIS MAGIC FLUTE! This is right up there with all the great MAGIC FLUTES wether on DVD or CD.1) Vocally the cast is faultless.2) Orchestraly with the Wiener Symphoniker what could go wrong.3) Patrick Summers is a great conductor for this music. Nuance might be his forte.4) The Bregenzer Festspiele has gone all out in every department wether contracting great new, young and exciting talented vocalists who can act or in every area of the arts i.e. Sets, Costumes, Lighting, Puppetry,Video and Sound.5) Special Effects abound and always add to the Drama.6) David Pountney has come up with a few new and creative ideas on motivation and their consequences. Here a creative and well thought out staging truly resolves this opera's dicotomy. Fantasy and Masonic Ritual. He and his entire Production Team deserve KUDOS!!! Set Designer - Johan Engels. Costume and Puppet Designer - Marie-Jeanne Lecca. Lighting Designer - Fabrice Kebour all work in perfect harmony and as a great team with an inspired Director.7) Norman Reinhardt is an elegant voiced Tamino. Rich and smooth of tone and a fine actor.8) Bernarda Bobro is a superb Pamina. Her costume and Ruby Red Shoes remind me of Dorthy in THE WIZARD OF OZ, and it only adds to the fantasy element beautifuly.9) Ana Durlovski is another in a great line of Queen Of The Nights and vocally of the Dramatic Coloratura ilk. Her mike once in a while for only a second or two seems to lose focus in her first aria. High notes are blazing and fired off with abandon.10) Daniel Schmutzhard is a rich and vibrant voiced Papageno.11) Denise Beck his enchanting Papagena.12) Alfred Reiter is a strong Sarastro who stands up well against the competion .13) This production has not a single weak link or flaw. It is right up there with the current creative productions by The Paris Opera and The Met. IT TRULY IS MAGICAL and a Special Effects TOUR DE FORCE!!! It also musically and vocally holds its head up high in a crowded field; even starting with Thomas Beecham's historic recording and many more truly great recordings and filmings.14) There are a few musical cuts: one verse of Sarastro's aria and the Sarastro, Tamino and Pamina Trio and some of the Masonic music. This was probably done to keep this an one Act performance at 150 minutes. No intermission.15) Monostatos, The Three Ladies and The Three Geni are all wonderful and the Puppets a true delight.16) All envolved in making this production available deserve our THANKS and SUPPORT. It must have cost a fortune. BRAVI TUTTI !!! The Magic Flute is one of my favorite operas every since I learned Papageno in Grad School-Carnegie Mellon University and I own dozens of Studio and Live Performances both on CD, DVD, and I'm giving my age away here LP with a couple of 78s. This cast and totally in SINC Performance is right up there tied for first place with a select few!

The set and costumes were so much fun! To me, the music was flawless. Papagayno, the comic character was my favorite part of the movie. I recommend this version to the average person who wants good music, good sets, and costumes, and good entertainment, someone like me who doesn’t go to the opera.

Conventional productions of this classic composition - while performing some great music and vocal arrangements - cannot hold a candle to this over-the-top production. Recorded live, often such events lack sound quality, fading, interference, and other technical glitches but this one is flawless.Much like being there, you are transported to a surreal "floating" stage surrounded by water on all sides. Tastefully executed, the addition of water to an otherwise exciting and animated opera takes a well-coreographed performance and bumps it up a notch (or two...or three). Unlike some Hollywood films that attempt to do the same and fail, this one is classy and impactful creating a lasting impression of what entertainment was like before television or the internet.I am certain that if you enjoy opera, you will appreciate this unusual twist. And if you think opera is about fat ladies singing and long, enduring death scenes, you may be pleasantly surprised. The music is superb and mixed at the proper level never outstaging the performers and never detracting from the action. Bravo on this technical and artistic masterpiece.See my blog at http://audiohile-musings.blogspot.com for more reviews and DIY articles.

This production of the Magic Flute is well done. The singing is marvelous. The orchestra and conductor are beyond reproach. The staging on an island with a revolving top that rotates from forest to Temple is excellent imagery and well used.The Women of the night and the Queen of the Night costumes are fantastical and wonderful. The white garb of the prince is simple and beautiful. The priests are imaginatively outfitted. Papageno is somewhat out of place in modern, cheap, yellow cut off sweat pants, poorly fitting zippered sweat shirt, t shirt, and baseball cap, but the outfit does make him a "common man" in the middle of aristocracy. Papagena's change from old lady to cheerleader complete with the pompoms is a little unsettling, but mates her with Papageno.This production emphasizes the concept of love conquers all, whether aristocratic or plebeian. There was very little of the feminism I have seen in other productions.

This was a fantastic--in every way-- of my most beloved of operas. I bought the version on vinyl with Karl Boehm nearly 50 years ago, and still play it at times. The staging and costumes were spectacular in the Bregenz production, and the setting on the lake greatly enhanced the mood of the opera. Some Mozart purists might be offended by this interpretation, and I guess they can just close their eyes and listen to the orchestra and singers because the music is good. Mozart seemed to enjoy a bit of quirkiness, and he might have been pleased with this performance. The filming in Blu-ray is beautiful, and for $30 or so, much less expensive than a ticket to see the opera and arrange flights and a hotel. When more people learn of this version, I should think it would not be easy to keep it in stock.

This is an impressive and extraordinarily fantastic production of this opera, which has never been one of my favorites for its masonic contents.I do not like Sarastro and his retinue and Papageno is too much. I love Tamino and Pamina and the Queen of the Night does not bother me,specially with her two big arias. I enjoyed the settings and all the fantasy. Video and Audio are terrific. I hate modern productions of classic operasbut this I do not consider a modern production but an outstanding representation of a classic.

Wonderful - fabulous singing and an imaginative set - it's hard to muck up the fairy tale of Magic Flute (although some companies have recently risen to that challenge). This was magnificent in both staging and singing.

the most amazing flute youll ever see .david poutney shows he can direct still on the largest scale mind boggling . and highly recommened

great job!

Absolutely wonderfull

As a collector of Magic Flute DVD/Blu-ray operas (I now have 34), this has to be one of the best. I don't feel qualified to evaluate the singing, but for its fantastic set and costumes, I'd have to give this 6 stars out of 5. I also liked this being set out on the water. However, there were two problems for me. (So I took off a star.) With such elaborate costumes, how could they come up with such a dorky costume for Papageno. Everyone else is in an over-the-top costume, but Papageno is in a yellow hoodie and a green baseball hat. When he entered, he had a weird contraption on his head that he took off and never wore again. They could have done so much with feathers in his costume to make him look like a bird man, as so many other versions have done.The other problem I had was the three "boys". It annoys me that they use women for these roles, although I have seen several versions with actual boys playing the parts. There are lots of trained young male voices who could do the parts - the Vienna Boys Choir seems to have no problem finding suitable voices. Also, the costumes of the "boys" had elaborate brassieres, hardly suitable attire for "boys".