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The Arts Intel Report

Die Zauberflöte, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

A scene from Act II of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte.

May 19 – June 10, 2023
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023, USA

Simon McBurney’s staging of The Magic Flute, unveiled at the English National Opera in 2013, arrives at the Metropolitan Opera trailing raves. Here are some of the features the Brits went wild for: a raised pit, allowing the orchestra musicians to be seen; a “foley artist,” who produces live sound effects to match the stage action; video projections; and flying on wires! How fresh all this will look in New York a decade later is an open question. But McBurney has a way of disarming even the most jaded of theatergoers. Lawrence Brownlee and Erin Morley are Tamino and Pamina, the prince and princess whose love resets the clock in a fallen world. Kathryn Lewek’s Queen of the Night and Stephen Milling’s Sarastro are the old guard, whose sands have run out. Nathalie Stutzmann, the distinguished French contralto turned A-list maestro, conducts her second new Met production in two weeks. (The other is Don Giovanni.) —Matthew Gurewitsch

Photo: Karen Almond / Met Opera