A precipitous stage that tips and tilts like a raft lost in a stormy sea; glugging, gurgling sound effects; chalk words animated on live video; paper birds given flight by scurrying figures in black; trials of fire and flood that appear to engulf the entire theatre. The orchestra sits raised above the pit, solo flautist stepping from her seat to provide true enchantment as the story demands. At times the audience too – terror upon terror – is on the verge of participation as characters tear through the auditorium. Mozart and his librettist, the actor-impresario Emanuel Schikaneder, would have loved the pantomimic theatricality, the anarchy and invention and illusion, of English National Opera’s The Magic Flute, back for a third revival since its 2013 premiere, conducted by Erina Yashima making an ear-catching house debut.
A collaboration with the theatre company Complicité, directed by its co-founder Simon McBurney, the action moves in space as if without walls (designs by Michael Levine). Shakespeare’s The Tempest is a telling reference point. Bringing this complex staging back to the Coliseum at a time of such crisis – ENO’s dismemberment is an ongoing saga of management and Arts Council England shame – came with risk. We can assume the budget was shoestring, rehearsals squeezed to a minimum.
