Word: te
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...entrance of the audience into this magical world was beautifully accentuated by set and costume designer David Hockney’s whimsical approach. Typically, the Met’s sensational stage effects create a realism that puts Hollywood to shame, but Hockney understood that Die Zauberflöte is not about realism, and his vision transported the packed house from the banalities of real life into a divine fantasy realm. The stage, adorned with simple painted backdrops, was awash in pastels, and the singers wore brightly colored costumes (sky blue and gold for Sarastro and his priests, green...
Such is the message—and the basic plot—of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. Set to the libretto of Mozart’s fellow Freemason Emanuel Schikaneder, it offers such an idealistic view of human nature and interpersonal relationships that it seems in danger of being laughed to scorn by modern audiences. But on the March 17 closing night performance of its recent Die Zauberflöte production, New York’s Metropolitan Opera demonstrated just how powerful and convincing Mozart’s final opera really...
...three-hour cartoon, which only made the impact of Die Zauberflöte’s idealistic vision more powerful. This opera is, after all, a fairy tale—albeit a bizarre one full of Masonic rituals and Egyptian gods. And like all fairy tales, Die Zauberflöte seeks to teach us a moral. Its particular lesson—the transformative power of brotherhood and love—would lose much of its force if we forgot, even for a minute, that what we are watching is markedly not the world in which we live. Fortunately, the Met?...
Such near-perfection is representative of Die Zauberflöte itself. Although it contains what is arguably Mozart’s most mature and varied music, as a piece of drama it doesn’t always attain the same sublimity. There is, for example, no explanation of why the evil Queen of the Night has at her disposal three virtuous wonder-boys who help Tamino thwart the Queen’s plans after leading him to Sarastro’s temple. Nor is it obvious why Sarastro, that paragon of priestly piety, employs as his prison warden...
...fish and, increasingly, organic fruits and vegetables. Some adventurous souls are tucking into more exotic fare like ostrich, emu, bison and kangaroo. With certain beef products officially banned and others looked on with growing suspicion, there is a danger that some traditional European dishes, from ossobuco to côte de boeuf, may be headed for extinction. Such fears may well be exaggerated. But one thing seems certain: "mad cow" disease is changing the way Europeans eat and could have far-reaching effects on the way food is produced, marketed and prepared in the future...