The Magic Flute - Das Vermächtnis der Zauberflöte

I am a musician, I play trumpet and sing with groups, but I am not particularly a fan of opera. I knew that Mozart wrote "The Magic Flute" but other than that had no idea what the story was about. Now I know! And this movie makes that journey fun. There is a key fantasy element here and that is a movie trait I generally enjoy. Think "Pleasantville" or "The Purple Rose of Cairo."

The movie begins with a young man by his sick dad's bedside. His dad was a singer and young Tim would go to the prestigious Mozart academy in Austria, shortly after his dad passed away.

Young Jack Wolfe, with his fine features and slight build looking 15, is Tim Walker. When he shows up mid-session learns that the school is auditioning for a stage performance of Mozart's Magic Flute. He might be a candidate for the lead role of Prince Tamino.

One fateful morning at precisely 3:00AM he is transported through a magic portal to the fictional land of the characters in 'The Magic Flute.' There he is Prince Tamino and he must figure out a way to save the Princess. At 6:00AM he is back in school, only to be repeated on next days.

Already with his connection to Mozart in the 1984 movie 'Amadeus', F. Murray Abraham plays the stern head of the music school, creating a character not too different from the stern teacher in the 2000 movie 'Finding Forrester.' He is excellent in these types of roles, as he is here.

I watched it at home on BluRay from my public library. With DTS surround sound it was like being in an auditorium when the Mozart symphonic music was playing. And the video is some of the best I have seen.

All in all a very fine and entertaining take on 'The Magic Flute'. My wife skipped the first time but joined me when I re-watched it 6 weeks later.

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.

This movie is well done and the plot is unique. A teenage boy who attends the Mozart Academy of Music is magically transported to the world of The Magic Flute. There he actually performs in the opera. It's great to see F. Murray Abraham play the headmaster considering he played Antonio Salieri so well in the movie Amadeus. I do recommend that people see the original opera on stage to fully grasp the scope of the music and story, or as it is called the libretto in opera terms.

This movie is entertaining and puts this opera in a whole new light. It's great for Mozart fans and fans of a good love story. It introduces the magic of Mozart to the next generation.

There are so many great things going on in this movie that it's kind of sad that it has some big issues that keep it from being a great success. The concept is interesting, the cast is wonderful, and the story moves very quickly, although sometimes to its own detriment. Two major things could have saved this movie for me. It would have been a mini series, so it wouldn't have felt so rushed and the relationships between the characters could have felt more developed. Because there was so much underdevelopment in the characters and plot, I had a hard time understanding the parallels between the stories of the real and magical worlds. I'm still not sure if there's any more of a parallel other than the protagonist proving his worth. If that was all, then it was a pretty big "to do" for such a simple theme. Also, I didn't care for the production design for the magical world. I honestly feel that the real world setting of the school was so much more interesting and charming than the beigeness of the magical world which often resembles the desolate, depressing landscapes of Dune. One would expect the magical world to be more vibrant and exciting to visit than the real one. I found myself more enjoying the real world and its storylines, just not enough.

Fresh from recent screenings of Michael Powell's "Tales of Hoffmann" (1951) and "Bluebeard's Castle" (1963) I thought I'd give this a go... No, in no way can anyone claim that the singing is to the same standard of Norman Foster or Robert Rounseville, but there is one similarity. This is not an opera, it's a filmed interpretation of one - and it's aimed fairly and squarely at younger folks who would no more want to sit through two hours of Mozart sang in German than they'd volunteer for dental surgery. I think that's what makes this worth indulging a bit more. Recruiting the handsome Jack Wolfe (anyone else think he looks a little bit like Thomas Sangster) is guaranteed to turns some heads. He is the seventeen year old "Tim" who takes up his place at the famous Mozart school high in the Alps. He knows nobody and is armed only with the tiniest amount of confidence and a book given to him by his now deceased dad. He gets a distinctly frosty welcome from the musical snobs - including the professor "Lomgbow" (the sparingly used F. Murray Abraham) - in the place, but his roommate "Paolo" (Ellie Courtiour) proves to be OK and he makes friends with "Sophie" (Niamh McCormack) over some "Jackson 5" music on their headphones. What he also discovers is that his book opens a long forgotten secret passageway into the very land in which "The Magic Flute" is set. So long as he goes through at 3 o'clock each night, he will be able to live out the story with "Papageno" (Iwan Rheon), "Pamina" (Asha Banks) as they face the "Queen of the Night" (Sabine Devieilhe). To help defend himself, he has been given a flute and now he must learn to use it to best effect. Yes, it's the "Janet and John" version, and the English language obsession with rhyme can limit the power of the libretto at times, but this is still an engaging mix of modern teen/hormonal drama interspersed through some of the darker, funnier and more sinister elements of the original story. The score is rousing and the cast - especially Devieilhe - deliver the songs adequately enough, I'd say, to encourage anyone interested in the production to take it to anther level - to see it on the stage even. It's not great, but it's a solid effort that might just make this marvellous form of entertainment become of interest to a new generation of Taylor Swift fans.