Steven Sloane says that the new production of Mozart's "Magic Flute", which premieres at the Frankfurt Opera on October 2, is not at all conventional.

As the German-American conductor reveals, who was first conductor here from 1988 to 1992 and has now stepped in as musical director for Julia Jones, who was ill, the stage design by Andrew Lieberman is "quite economical" and the staging by Ted Huffman is unusual for the character of the Tamino to be focused.

The prince, who wants to free his beloved Pamina from Sarastro's palace and thus forms the protagonist couple with her, often appears as an "underdog" in other productions.

It is true that Mozart composed a magnificent tenor part for him,

Guido Holze

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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According to the idea of ​​the American director, who staged Handel's "Rinaldo" with great success in Frankfurt's Bockenheimer Depot in 2017 and who is also bringing Handel's "Orlando" to the Frankfurt stage this season, the story becomes like a big flashback as Tamino's dream told.

In addition, he can only be seen as an old and demented man.

Some things will be very concrete in Huffman's production, others will be abstract, with an ambivalence on psychological and sublime aspects, says Sloane.

Detachment of the evergreen

The amazing thing about it is “that the music comes so absolutely to the fore,” says the long-serving General Music Director of Bochum, who is now chief conductor of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and continues to teach as a professor at the University of the Arts in Berlin.

Another great feature of the production, which after 24 years replaces Alfred Kirchner's production, which has been revived 15 times since its premiere in 1998 and has thus become a perennial favorite at the Frankfurt Opera, is that spoken dialogues are played from tape.

Sloane promises that the humor, the tragic moments and above all the subliminal will come into their own.

The unique thing about the music of the "Magic Flute" is that it moves on so many different levels.

There is the funny, entertaining sphere in the tradition of the librettist Emanuel Schikaneder, plus the virtuosity of the Queen of the Night's coloratura, pointed characters like Monostatos, but also a lot of sublime music.

The staging was designed in such a way "that the music can develop undisturbed in a positive sense," says Sloane, who likes to look back to the beginning of his career in Frankfurt.

Appointed by the then general music director Gary Bertini shortly after the opera fire in 1987, he was able to build up a lot of repertoire during the four years here, also at the alternative venue, learned a lot and even there often conducted Mozart.

■ The Magic Flute premieres at the Frankfurt Opera on October 2 from 6 p.m.

Next performances on October 7th, 15th, 21st and 30th