The orbs have been re-lit and the falcon booked, the monumental masonry slotted back into place and the flying contraption (part Wright brothers prototype, part Victorian perambulator) commandeered by another three boys. Twenty two years since its debut, with revivals now in double figures, David McVicar’s production of The Magic Flute is back, overseen by revival director Ruth Knight.
The lighting is as beautiful as ever: there’s no mistaking the Enlightenment’s visual metaphors here. Notwithstanding a technical hitch that delayed the start of act two on opening night, the opera’s sequence of mysterious non-places glides along, dreamlike and atmospheric. The opera has long outlived its genre of Singspiel – a kind of 18th-century musical – and its edutainment moralising unavoidably harks back to another age. Whether you agree with the programme that an opera insisting that women always need male guidance is “very suitable for children” will depend on your parenting style. But it’s hard to imagine the plot making more sense in the 21st century than it does in McVicar’s hands.
