I just wanted to share the comments of some friends of friends of ours from Frankfurt in German, who saw The Magic Fluteon Sunday and loved it.

The “look” of the show was modern European, they said , accurately capturing “the grey banality of evil” (their quote).

What is most interesting is that they said it was the first North American production they had ever seen that actually reflected what the opera says (misogyny and authoritarianism)– “somebody who can actually understand German took the trouble to read the libretto” is what they said. They told me about one Dutch production where Sarastro’s court was presented as Mussolini’s palace (complete with fasces) and said that was “genau”

The thing that really excited them– and they had never seen before– was the replacement of Sarastro. They thought that was brilliant (they also thought Tamino would turn into another Sarastro– that he had bought in to the whole authoritarian structure). They are also planning to catch the Port cast production next week.