Word: fluting
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Heidi Ratner, flute; Michael Loucks, piano; Charles Kletzch, voice and piano perform compositions of Brahms, Ibert and Kletzsch. Dunster House Library, 3:00. James Meadors, lute, plays sixteenth century English lute songs. Eliot House Library...
Like most operas, The Magic Flute has its cultists, opera purists have harrumphed at Bergman's "popularization" of the original libretto. But he's done the rest of us a service--to the uninitiated The Magic Flute's message can be hard to fathom, seeming alternately simpleminded and ponderously abstract. The opera is an allegorical celebration of the ideals of the Masonic brotherhood, a secret, illegal society to which Mozart belonged, and the elaborate rituals that take up over half the opera are closely modeled on the initiation rites of the Order. Eighteenth century audiences would have instantly recognized...
...good for much of anything. But she grows from child to woman in a believably gradual manner, and her strength is clear from the way she leads Tamino through the last Trial. He, on the other hand, keeps his eyes shut and plays the flute...
...stolen from a children's nursery. The dragon in the first act struts on breathing fire and smoke, minces aggressively across the stage like Milton Berle in the wrong costume, and rolls his eyes soulfully as he is speared by the Queen's three ladies. Later, Tamino and his flute charm a whole stageful of forest creatures who look like plush Walt Disney cartoons. Bergman interpolates respectful self-assertions wherever he can, small tugs on the sleeve to remind us that while we're appreciating Mozart we should be noticing him, too. During the overture he weaves shots...
There is no trace of the oppressive, gaunt quality of Bergman's earlier films. The Magic Flute is a work of such magic and belief that Bergman's agonized mysticism seems to have found a total release in the expression of another artist's orderly, God-filled universe. The film is sensitive, joyful, full of serious wit. One hates to say it, but classical opera is rarely so sexy or so much fun as this...