Director’s Note:

Before a plumber named Mario rescued Princess Peach and an ogre named Shrek rescued Princess Fiona, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Emanuel Schikaneder created The Magic Flute, in which the Queen of the Night sends Prince Tamino on a quest to rescue her daughter—Princess Pamina—from the evil Sarastro.

Like the University of Pennsylvania’s founder—Benjamin Franklin—Mozart and Schikaneder were Freemasons. As members of this secret fraternal organization, they expressed values in this opera that were considered treasonous at the time: knowledge, justice, wisdom, and truth.

However, when this opera is viewed through an anti-oppressive lens, what Mozart and Schikaneder deemed knowledge, justice, wisdom, and truth is actually: racism through a slave role that was eliminated in our adaptation; hyper-heterosexuality in its frequent espousal of marriage as a union between a man and a woman; and misogyny in the portrayal of the Queen of the Night as inherently evil instead of a mother traumatized by the kidnapping of her daughter. As such, we made extensive cuts to reimagine The Magic Flute in a way that uplifts voices that have been historically underrepresented in opera.

Over the past year, studies have shown that anxiety and stress brought on by the pandemic have contributed to people experiencing intensely vivid dreams. With that in mind, this version of The Magic Flute ejects our protagonist into a fairy tale dreamscape filled with magic, daggers, and the eponymous magic flute, blurring the line between what is real and what is imaginary.

As our society recovers from the pandemic, I hope this virtual production will serve as a relic of the creativity and resiliency of Penn students during one of the darkest moments in human history. Enjoy immersing yourself in this new adaptation of The Magic Flute!