For all Mozart’s musical genius, The Magic Flute can be a long and not especially funny night at the opera. That certainly isn’t the case with Simon McBurney’s 2013 production at the beleaguered English National Opera. Staged in collaboration with Complicité, and scrupulously revived by director Rachael Hewer, there’s a lifetime of wit, wisdom and theatrical audacity distilled in this inventive peach of a show.
Ditching the masonic mumbo-jumbo and gussying up the dialogue, McBurney has you laughing out loud. A dozen actors, their movement beautifully choreographed, bustle around without ever pulling focus; singers inhabit the auditorium without it feeling gratuitous. There’s aerial wizardry, tiny shadow puppets, some inventive and immaculately coordinated live video (Ben Thompson) and equally ingenious deployment of an onstage foley artist (Ruth Sullivan).
