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By Matthew Westphal
04 Jan 2007
Over the holiday weekend, the Metropolitan Opera launched one innovative new experiment — the high-definition simulcast of performances into movie theaters — with another: a streamlined, 100-minute English-language version of Mozart's The Magic Flute designed for youngsters and their families.
Have the experiments succeeded? The live screenings, except for technical glitches in a very few locations, went very well, and many of them sold out far ahead of time. And the shortened Flute? ("The Magic Piccolo"?) Some critics have complained about the cuts in the score, as critics will, and the Met's creative team acknowledges that the excisions were painful. But audiences have been responding positively, and the company expects to make afternoon performances of this version an annual holiday offering.
The production, of course, is the now-famous 2004 staging by Julie Taymor, of which some photos are offered below.
The abridged Magic Flute gets its final performance of the season this afternoon. Meanwhile, the Met presents the full-length Die Zauberflöte four more times this month — tonight through January 12 — with four further performances between February 21 and March 8. More details are available at www.metopera.org.
All photos by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera.
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