The Magic Flute

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Teenager Tim Walker (Jack Wolfe) arrives at prestigious Austrian Mozart boarding school run by Dr. Longbow (F. Murray Abraham). He's fallen for fellow student Sophie (Niamh McCormack). He finds a portal to another world where he's given The Magic Flute. This story should be more compelling. There are daddy issues. There's a puppy love blooming. There's a magical portal and there is a magical flute. It should be more compelling. Part of that is Tim who seems to pop in and out of the other world with ease. There needs to be stakes in that other world, but it never feels dangerous. Also, there's another girl there and I don't know what to do with that. It would be better if he goes to the other world with Sophie and they get stuck there. Then it becomes a journey to find the way home.

Sometimes it's hard to find a production that has a little something for everyone. This movie does. I am a fan of and sang opera professionally in my younger days (I'm over 70) I know the Magic Flute well. When I saw that this was being released, I had trepidations, I'll admit. However, I was delighted by the way this was handled. It's a little bit Harry Potter, a little C. S. Lewis (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), and a lot of Mozart. Except for two professional opera singers (Queen of the Night and Sarastro), the other singing members of the cast did not have the power in their voices to raise them to opera strength. Actually, the times that I have done this opera, I have always sung it in German. Hearing it in English was a bit of a shock, but all things considered, necessary. This to me was the only problem with the film, but then I remembered that this is part real world, part fantasy. Did they change the opera, of course, but they kept the best Arias, and spoke the dialogue that was sung in the Opera. All in all, this is a movie I would recommend highly, as long as the watcher is not expecting a faithful reiteration of the opera. . Enjoy it for what it is.

My wife and I took my five year old daughter to go see this. I don't know much about Mozart or this particular opera but I knew there were fantasy elements and were all huge fantasy nerds. The first twenty minutes set up the main character of Tim and his relationship with his father, who was a famous singer of sorts (to what extent is never explained fully) and he gives his son a magic book. He's sent to attend the same music school as his father, one dedicated to Mozart. But soon we realize he's set to relive his fathers legacy by playing the lead in The Magic Flute. F. Murray Abraham is deviously wonderful as the strict headmaster, although he is drastically under used. Tim soon finds himself using the magic book and a magic portal behind a clock to transport himself to the world of The Magic Flute where he meets Iwan Rheon as Papagenu who absolutely steals the show. The resulting film is filled with fantastic music and visuals, including a giant snake, an evil Queen, and a daring rescue of a kidnapped princess by the unlikely heroes. The scenes at the school seemed to drag from time to time, but toward the end I was happy that they included as much of that storyline as they did because it was heartwarming at the conclusion. My 5 year old and I loved, my wife didn't like it at all unfortunately. But we will definitely be watching this again.

This is a straightforward movie - a framing story about our young protagonists in musical school, and the opera itself, played out simultaneously after the hero passes some magical gate every day for a few hours. The framing story seemed a bit cliché but never got the upper hand; the fantasy sequences are perfectly realised, with respect to the fairytale atmosphere of the libretto, so not too realistic but rather colourful and dreamlike. As to the music, well, I'm not an opera gourmet; I rather liked how some of the arias were blared out with gusto and not too fine an intonation, but on the other hand, the queen's soprano really put goosebumps on my skin - it's quite an event hearing such a perfect and dramatic voice over a cinema sound system (pretty loud, too, in our case). (I'm a sucker for choir movies, btw ... the human voice is the most beautiful of instruments!) The one thing I didn't understand about the music was the generic end-credits song, why not use Mozart again? Overall, a hearty recommendation for all music lovers. We liked it very much, even though we're 50ish and the movie is clearly targeted at a younger audience - the school scenes, interior and exterior, are clearly inspired by Harry Potter, they even put in an Austrian railway viaduct similar to the one on the Mallaig line :)

I am not quite sure why this movie only scores 5.9 (as of today, April 2023). There maybe a few opera snobs around who think it cheapens the Mozart original, but they're wrong. This movie should be taken for what it is: a good way of introducing opera to a younger generation who probably never hear such wonderful music otherwise. The cast do a good job and the twin storylines, running in parallel, with the real life romance playing out while the Magic Flute story plays out in the world that Tim/Prince Tamino travels to through the magic clock. Mozart's score is, as always, enchanting. And there's a nice cameo at the end from a rather well-known operatic tenor....