Tonight I went into the city with Bob to see San Francisco Opera’s production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte). We drove to BART and then took the train into the city. Prior to the opera we had a nice dinner at Max’s. It was a warm day in the valley and it was still pleasantly warm in the city.
In my limited experience in opera, this opera has been my favorite. I remembered that the music was great, but I didn’t really remember the story. This production was very different than a standard opera (preview). The staging was a multimedia video showing of backgrounds and exposition, and the singers generally appeared only partially in this 2-D setting. The look appeared like a movie from the silent movie era. The animations in the background reminded me of those in Monty Python. I found it engaging although different. Bob absolutely hated it. The music was the same, but he didn’t like that the singers weren’t really doing acting, mostly appearing in front of the video. That didn’t bother me so much. It was quite impressive how they matched the live actor/singers to the various moving background images. In the end I didn’t come away feeling like I was blown away by The Magic Flute as I had been in the past. Maybe my tastes have just changed. Nevertheless, it was a very enjoyable production and a fun evening.