Alfred Reiter

Opera on the Lake: “The Magic Flute” with an Enchanting Natural Backdrop One of the most frequently performed Mozart operas is the highlight of this year’s Bregenz Festival. “The Magic Flute” is performed on the world’s largest lake stage – with its impressive oversized stage setting with Lake Bodensee as a backdrop, it provides an enchanting frame for the love story between Tamino and Pamina.

What begins like a fairy-tale turns into a whimsical fantasy halfway between magic farce and Masonic mysticism: The Magic Flute links a love story with the great questions of the Enlightenment, juxtaposes bird-catcher charm with queenly vengeance, and bewitches the listener with music that mixes cheerful melodies, lovers’ arias, showstopping coloraturas and mysterious chorales. W. A. Mozart’s opera premiered in 1791 and is one of the most often performed operas in the world. The production on the Bregenz Festival lake stage impresses the audience with a fantastic setting framed by three dog-dragons, each of them more than twenty meters in height. “David Pountney finds stunning answers to the everlasting questions surrounding ‘The Magic Flute’.” (Tagesspiegel) “The ‘play on the lake’ in Bregenz takes the audience into a fantasy world.” (Salzburger Nachrichten)

A classic production from the Bayreuth Festival is made available here for the first time on DVD! Staged and directed by Richard Wagner’s grandson Wolfgang Wagner at the Bayreuther Festspiele in 1999, this production of Wagner’s only comic opera features an all-star cast and the Bayreuther Festspiele chorus and orchestra under the direction of Daniel Barenboim.

Lluis Pasqual's powerful production for the Spanish capital sets Da Ponte's timeless story of sleaze and seduction into the dark world of 1940s Spain. Carlos Álvarez, in the title role, toys with the affections of Donna Anna, Zerlina and the Spanish lady Donna Elvira, before his overpowering methods finally bring his own destruction.