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The Haunted Flute Vienna
Staatsoper
06/22/2026 - & June 24, 26, 28, 2026
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Die Zauberflöte, K. 620
Pavol Breslik (Tamino), Florina Ilie (Pamina), Jessica Pratt (Queen of the Night), Michael Nagl (Papageno), Ilia Staple (Papagena), Günther Groissböck*/Ante Jerkunica (Sarastro), Matthäus Schmidleichner (Monostatos), Adrian Eröd (Speaker, Second Priest), Jenni Hietala, Alma Neuhaus, Stephanie Maitland (Three Ladies), Adrian Autard (First Priest), Devin Eatmon, Evgeny Dolodovnikov (Two Armed Men), Dominik Baumgartner, Adrian Weinzettl, Alexander Gruber (Three Boys)
Chor der Wiener Staatsoper, Martin Schebesta (Chorus master), Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper, Ivor Bolton (Conductor)
Barbora Horáková (Stage Director), Falko Herold (Set Design, Videography), Eva Butzkies (Costumes), Stefan Bolliger (Lighting)
I. Staple, M. Nagl (© Wiener Staatsoper/Michael Pöhn)
I may be in the minority, but I haven’t been a fan of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte for years. While I acknowledge its music is sublime, with several of its arias among the most memorable in opera, Schikaneder’s libretto is problematic. It’s further complicated by directors wrongly revering it as one of the noblest works ever. Worse, they interpret Act II’s notorious Masonic rites as something sacred.
Since my initial exposure to Die Zauberflöte in my late teens, I’ve found the argument nonsensical and the Masonic rites puerile. I couldn’t understand how Sarastro, who abducts Pamina from her mother, could be virtuous, and how a Queen, trying to rescue her daughter, could be evil. To be sure, much of the opera’s misogyny is an expression of the Freemasons’ aversion to Empress Maria Theresa, then sovereign of Austria.
At its best, Die Zauberflöte is a fabulous fairy tale. At its worst, it’s a misogynistic Masonic diatribe. Nonetheless, in the hands of a brilliant director such as Henry Mason, who staged it for Vienna’s Volksoper, or Marshall Pynkoski’s for Toronto, it can be entertaining and rewarding. On that matter, I had huge doubts, as this performance’s director was Barbora Horáková, who two years ago rendered a Dresden staging of Benvenuto Cellini, one of the most brilliant French operas, into rubbish. As Artificial Intelligence was the most spoken‑about topic at the time, she somehow linked the genius of the Renaissance sculptor to this modern phenomenon.
Brilliant stage directors are both creative and immensely cultured. Lesser ones are often neither; they tend to be inspired by fleeting trends. For lack of great literary references, historical events or philosophical ideas, Horáková’s great inspiration was the first season of the American television series American Horror Story: Murder House (2011).
Though this choice may have provided some striking images, the problem is how Die Zauberflöte fits into the context of a haunting. Might Sarastro and his order be from another realm? Is Tamino to rescue Pamina from ghosts who kidnapped her? If we use Schikaneder’s Masonic logic that Pamina’s mother is the evil one, then she would represent the spirit world and the ghost queen would ask a prince to rescue her daughter from mortals. In either case, it does not work.
What it provided was a partially dramatic opening scene: the Three Boys on bikes entered a haunted house and were scared out of their wits during the overture. I must admit this scene was successful, but alas, there are many more scenes and most were not convincing. The monster that attacked Tamino was an underwhelming ghostly apparition. The absence of said monster’s cadaver rendered Papageno’s lies absurd and his punishment nonsensical.
Even the Three Boys remained a puzzle: were they celestial creatures who helped Tamino in his quest? Or were they mortals who explored haunted mansions and got spooked? The latter image may be appealing but it was incoherent.
In the haunted house, we also discovered a coal cellar, a nursery, a schoolroom and a gentlemen’s club masquerading as Sarastro’s temple. The juxtaposition of these disparate places made little sense. If one chose to imagine, they might have been childhood memories. The question is, whose? And how do they relate to Mozart’s opera?
The coal cellar was a good pretext to have Monostatos blackened by soot, yet Schikaneder’s racist lyrics remain as offensive as ever (as are the myriad misogynic references). Sarastro’s temple as a gentleman’s club gave it unsettling vibes of something more sinister. Overall, the visual phantasmagoria was surprisingly tame when the haunted house setting would have justified a lot more exciting imagery.
One positive aspect of this production was its refusal to simplify Die Zauberflöte’s moral universe. Sarastro’s order is not presented as an uncomplicated Enlightenment utopia, nor was the Queen of the Night reduced to melodramatic villainy. Instead, both realms emerged as competing psychological forces, each possessing their own authority and limitations. Tamino’s journey thus became less an initiation into absolute wisdom than an education in moral ambiguity. The opera’s familiar opposition – darkness and light, emotion and reason, maternal instinct and patriarchal order – remained intact, yet they acquired a distinctly modern complexity.
As is often the case, the cast was superior to the staging. As Tamino, Slovak lyric tenor Pavol Breslik brought precisely the qualities that have long made him one of the foremost Mozart tenors of his generation: an unforced lyricism, immaculate diction, and an innate sense of noble line. His singing avoided heroic inflation, favouring instead an unaffected sincerity that made Tamino’s spiritual journey genuinely moving. His Act I aria “Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön” was polished and stylish, yet sincere and convincing. Opposite him, Romanian lyric soprano Florina Ilie offered a Pamina of luminous warmth. Her “Ach, ich fühl’s” was notable less for overt theatrical display than for its poised simplicity, the voice floating Mozart’s long phrases with admirable legato while preserving an unmistakably human vulnerability. Ilie’s Pamina was a memorably touching one.
Australia’s Jessica Pratt as the Queen of the Night may explain the higher than usual international audience. Pratt, who now mostly does bel canto, is one of today’s most popular coloraturas. I recognized several of her fans seen at her Lucrezia Borgia in Florence, Partenope in Naples, Bianca e Falliero in Pesaro and La sonnambula in Madrid.
Pratt was the vocal highlight of the evening. Her coloratura was dispatched with astonishing precision, with every ascent to the upper register secure and brilliantly focused without ever becoming merely acrobatic. Rather than presenting the Queen as a caricature of vocal pyrotechnics, Pratt gave the role an icy dramatic authority, making both “O zittre nicht” and “Der Hölle Rache” feel like genuine eruptions of wounded power rather than isolated showpieces. Most likely at the director’s instructions, she did not convey much motherly grief in her first aria, but she certainly communicated a sovereign’s wrath in the latter. However, the dull sets and Pratt’s dress failed to make an impression. Usually, a creatively conceived extravagant outfit would impose her as a true monarch. Instead, Eva Butzkies’s sober blue deux pièces business suit for the Queen of the Night established her as an angry schoolmistress.
Austrian bass Günther Groissböck was an imposing artist. Mostly known as the most prominent Baron Ochs of our time, Groissböck magically morphs into his roles, whether the aforementioned role in La Scala’s Der Rosenkavalier, Hagen in La Scala’s Götterdämmerung or Tristan und Isolde’s King Marke in Vienna.
As Sarastro, Groissböck brought exactly the combination of sonorous depth and intellectual gravity the role demands. His voice retained its imposing resonance, but it was the textual clarity and dignified restraint that proved most compelling. His Sarastro was neither infallible patriarch nor remote high priest; instead, he projected wisdom tempered by humanity. His psychologically nuanced reading of the character was one of the most appealing aspects of the performance.
Michael Nagl proved an engaging Papageno, eschewing broad buffoonery in favour of warmth, spontaneity and impeccable comic timing. His interactions with Ilia Staple’s charming Papagena provided genuine levity without disrupting the production’s more introspective atmosphere. Mercifully, Nagl did not overindulge in excessive local humour, as is often the case. Adrian Eröd, in the dual roles of Sprecher and Second Priest, lent the proceedings his customary verbal acuity and musical intelligence, while the Ladies and Boys maintained the exceptionally high ensemble standards that one expects from the Vienna State Opera.
In the pit, Ivor Bolton once again demonstrated his affinity for Mozart. Conducting the Vienna Philharmonic with a welcome combination of stylistic elegance and dramatic flexibility, he favoured transparent textures, buoyant rhythms and flowing tempi that allowed the score to breathe naturally. The orchestra responded with remarkably refined playing: the woodwinds conversed with chamber-like intimacy, the brass retained ceremonial splendour without heaviness, and the strings produced that unmistakably Viennese sheen which continues to distinguish Mozart performance in this house.
Together, conductor, orchestra and cast achieved precisely the equilibrium that Die Zauberflöte required: an interpretation in which vocal brilliance, orchestral sophistication and theatrical imagination remained in constant, effortless balance. Fortunately, the singing and the music were the true wonder of this Magic Flute.
Ossama el Naggar
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