Organization

Conductor

Wolfgang Sawallisch

Stage director

August Everding

Set designer

Jürgen Rose

Costume designer

Singer

Bass

Kurt Moll

Sarastro

Soprano

Edita Gruberová

The Queen of the Night

Tenor

Francisco Ariza

Tamino

Baritone

Wolfgang Brendel

Papageno

Gudrun Sieber

Papagena

Pamela Coburn

First lady

Daphne Evangelatos

Second lady

Contralto

Cornelia Wulkopf

Third lady

Jan-Hendrik Rootering

Speaker

Norbert Orth

Monostastos

Bayerische Staatsoper

Orchestra

Bayerisches Staatsorchester

German

Die Zauberflöte -  (The Magic Flute)

Munich

Germany

Prince Tamino is threatened by a snake. The three ladies of the Queen of the Night kill the monster and, on behalf of their mistress, give Tamino a portrait of Pamina, with which he immediately falls in love. Now the Queen of the Night herself appears, lamenting her suffering as a mother because Sarastro stole her daughter Pamina. She promises Tamino to marry Pamina if he frees her. The bird catcher Papageno is chosen to accompany Tamino.

In Sarastro's Temple of Wisdom, the two find Pamina, who immediately falls in love with Tamino. A priest informs Tamino of Sarastro's intention to remove Pamina from the queen's evil influence. Sarastro recognizes the love of the two young prince children; but before they are allowed to be in couple, they are to undergo a severe test of their love and virtue. The couple may walk the last part of the exam path together. With the help of the magic flute, Tamino and Pamina pass through fire and water and enter the temple cleansed. The Queen of the Night is thrown into eternal darkness amid thunder and lightning, while the new couple is solemnly admitted into the circle of initiates.

"Don't forget the seriousness and don't forget the humor", is how August Everding summed up the intention of his production, which premiered on August 30, 1978 at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. He didn't want The Magic Flute to be too philosophical or too burlesque. He wanted to combine everything that the work contained in contradictions: fairy tale magic, fun, cheerfulness, depth of thought, ideas of humanity. Above all, however, he did not want to bore the audience with constant rearranging when the curtain was closed and did not want to tear up Mozart's opera into individual pieces. So he was looking for a concept to keep the scenic flow going before and after the break without interruption. In order to realize this, Jürgen Rose largely stuck to the painterly: painted prospects, painted architecture. what you get to see

Die Zauberflöte Mozart

Public

The Magic Flute

Approved

Production booklet

Further reading