There’s still plenty of life left in Julie Taymor’s tried and tested production of Mozart’s Masonic masterpiece.

Joan Sutherland Theatre, The Sydney Opera House
December 30, 2015

Mozart’s The Magic Flute is one of those operas you can see a hundred times and still find something fresh in it. Perhaps that owes to the genius of the music, or the universality of its themes: courage, virtue and honesty. Whatever it is, Opera Australia’s version, a reproduction of Julie Taymor’s Met staging, with its myriad symbols and pyramids, animals and priests, colours and movement, is a musical and visual extravaganza.

One of the goals of this particular production is the democratisation of music; as such, the direction, the staging and the brisk edited version of this production is perfectly suited for newcomers to opera. This is a noble idea, and very much in keeping with what Mozart was trying to achieve when he collaborated with Schikaneder on this Singspiel, incorporating both singing and spoken dialouge. In Mozart’s own words to his wife, “What really makes me happy is the Silent applause!—one can feel how this opera is rising and rising.” He really meant to...