DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE

In the organizer's words:

The rays of the sun drive away the night": Mozart's great opera in the guise of a singspiel, "The Magic Flute", is back on the Cologne Opera's repertoire in Michael Hampe's production. The composer Mozart understood inimitably how to give the colorful plot a higher musical meaning: Papageno's folksong-like arias ("Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja") stand alongside the sublime choral scenes ("Es siegte die Stärke"), and never has an aria sounded sadder and more hopeless than in the case of Pamina, who thinks she has been abandoned by her lover ("Ach ich fühl's, es ist verschwunden"). The magical effect of music is at the heart of the actual message: the instruments of the Magic Flute and the glockenspiel symbolize the power of music to change the world and can work wonders even when society is going through a time of crisis. In the contrasts between the realm of the sun and the nocturnal world, fire and water, revenge (Queen of the Night) and reason (Sarastro and the priesthood), virtuous characters (Tamino, Pamina) and cheerful, folksy characters (Papageno, Papagena), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's last opera is a great fairy tale for young and old!