The Magic Flute debuts at Belarus’ Bolshoi Theater

The Magic Flute, one of the most famous operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, has been premiered at the Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theater of Belarus as part of the 2017 Austrian Culture Season. The production was staged by artistic director of the Brucknerhaus concert hall in Linz, Professor Hans-Joachim Frey. Back in 2013, he also staged The Flying Dutchman by Richard Wagner at Belarus’ Bolshoi.

An international team worked with the Belarusian singers to create an ‘opera for the people’. It included musical director Manfred Mayrhofer (Austria), and costume designer Hartmut Schorghofer (Austria), who used computer technology and sophisticated stage machinery to help Hans-Joachim Frey produce a modern opera with a light, airy sound and scenery in a fantasy style reminiscent of the famous Game Of Thrones and Lord of The Rings.

The fairy tale opera The Magic Flute was first presented in Vienna over two centuries ago. It is about the conflict between good and evil where the magic flute is not only a music instrument, but also a weapon… The audience are taken from one world to another, from the ‘dark’ world ruled by the Queen of the Night, to the bright and sunny world of Sarastro. In between the two there is ‘the middle world’: the world of nature where Papageno and Papagena live.

The new production of The Magic Flute impresses the audience with its imposing scale and high attention to detail: it features 26 stage sets and over 200 costumes. And this is by far not the limit! In the run-up to the first night of the production that took place on 30 March, the Bolshoi Theater devoted one week entirely to conduct final rehearsals and prepare the stage for one of the most technically challenging productions in its repertoire.

A special feature of the Belarusian production of The Magic Flute is that for the first time the world-famous opera is presented in two languages, Russian and German. The original libretto has remained unchanged, only the dialogue voice parts have been shortened to add some dynamism.

Enjoy pictures of the preparations for the premiere and the final rehearsals of The Magic Flute at Belarus’ Bolshoi in our photo gallery.

Photo by Oksana Manchuk