There have been all kinds of settings of Mozart’s legendary opera The Magic Flute, and this magical production – jointly developed by State Opera South Australia, Opera Hong Kong and the Beijing Music Festival – is one of the most original and inventive.

The action begins in a busy metro station bustling with commuters. A busker dressed as Mozart plays the electric guitar. The principal character, Tamino (Nicholas Jones), is a traveller who suddenly and inexplicably finds himself attacked by a serpent in the form of a train, thus leaving the real world and entering a world of fantasy or dreams through a vortex.

Nicholas Jones and Danielle Bavli in State Opera South Australia’s The Magic Flute. Photo © Andrew Beveridge

Above the station platform is a giant billboard advertising air travel, with three hostesses dressed in red who suddenly come to life. The Three Ladies (Helena Dix, Catriona Barr and Fiona McArdle) bring an airline food trolley onto the stage to attend to the fallen Tamino.

When the fantastical character of the birdcatcher Papageno (David Greco) appears, he is dressed in a chicken costume with a food deliverer’s backpack. The Three Ladies punish him for lying by gagging him with an airline oxygen mask. Later, when Papagena (Jessica Dean) throws off her disguise as an old woman, she is dressed as a brilliantly colourful bird of paradise.

Monostatos (Mark Oates) is in a tiger-skin suit as if he’s an animal predator, and the Speaker (Pelham Andrews) is a tramp. The towering figure of Sarastro (Teddy Tahu Rhodes) is made even taller with a gigantic white top hat illuminated from within, and at one point, he sits on a cloud to address his acolytes.

The seductive Queen of the Night (Danielle Bavli) wields a staff topped with a metal sickle that represents the moon and is later detached and given to Pamina (Stacey Alleaume) to murder Sarastro.

The busker (uncredited) reappears to hand Tamino the magic flute, suggesting that Mozart has returned to the present day and propelled Tamino into this dream world.

But commuters in everyday clothes, security guards in hi-vis and uniformed police also appear, continually blurring the boundary between fantasy and reality.

Nicholas Jones and David Greco in State Opera South Australia’s The Magic Flute. Photo © Andrew Beveridge

While The Magic Flute is a fairytale story of people embarking on journeys of self-discovery, overcoming obstacles and finding both love and enlightenment, there are many subtexts. The opera is said to contain references to Freemasonry, with which most contemporary audiences would be unfamiliar. Mozart’s era was also the era of the Enlightenment and of the decline of absolutist monarchical government, and Sarastro is portrayed as a benevolent, inclusive ruler, contrasting the kinds of authoritarian government of the day and which seem to have have re-emerged.

The theme of travel runs throughout this production, and a succession of projected images of the inside of trains serves as a backdrop to key elements of the story. Trains come and go, and characters make their entrances and exits via trains, reminding us of our own hazardous journeys towards enlightenment and of the journeys of those we pass by.

This theme is shown especially through the presentation of the Three Boys (Phillip Cheng, Ethan Zhang and Celine Yuan) who appear at pivotal moments. When they first arrive on the station platform, they are infants in a three-seater stroller. Their next appearance is in the guise of adult men in business suits; in their third appearance, they are retirees in casual clothes; and in their final appearance, they are very old men with walking sticks.

State Opera South Australia’s The Magic Flute. Photo © Andrew Beveridge

Design (Dan Potra) and lighting (Glen D’Haenens) are ingenious, making much use of projections onto scrims to create visual effects, for example the scene in which Tamino and Pamina undergo their fire and water ordeals. In several scenes, characters carry or wear small lights and Sarastro’s staff is topped with an illuminated sphere, literally representing enlightenment. Even the palm of his hand is illuminated.

In the final scene, Sarastro replaces the sickle at the top of the Queen of the Night’s staff with an illuminated sphere, bringing her into the Temple of Enlightenment. There are innumerable small details in this realisation that add thematic complexity and interest.

Despite what appears to be a couple of slight, technical mishaps, the performances throughout are excellent. Sofia Troncoso, who was to play Pamina, is indisposed and replaced at the last minute by the brilliant Stacey Alleaume, whose Ach, ich fühl’s, es ist verschwunden (Oh, I feel it, it is gone) is a highlight.

Nicholas Jones is an engaging Tamino, MarkOates is an evil and ingratiating Monostatos and Teddy Tahu Rhodes a formidable Sarastro. Coloratura soprano Danielle Bavli is a passionate Queen of the Night, and she is superb in the famous aria Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen (Hell’s vengeance boils in my heart). Most of all, David Greco is in fine form as the clowning Papageno.

Shuang Zou’s direction is inspired, generating all kinds of thought-provoking ideas while remaining faithful to the original story. Conductor and SOSA Artistic Director Dane Lam, the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and the State Opera Chorus are magnificent, and designer Dan Potra has created a visual feast that blends realism with hallucination.

This is a highly imaginative and thoroughly convincing production that keeps the audience spellbound and revitalises Mozart’s gem.

State Opera South Australia presents The Magic Flute at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Adelaide until 6 September.