Animal magic | 12 December 2008

Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte opens with the hero, Tamino, being pursued by a terrible monster. It’s always a challenge to depict such a creature on stage but for the first performances of Nicholas Hytner’s now much revived production at English National Opera, a startling image was conceived. The tenor Tom Randle (then, as now, unaverse to showing off his well-toned torso) would appear, naked, wrapped in the writhing coils of a live snake. A snake handler was duly found and turned up for rehearsal with a battered brown suitcase from which emerged yard after yard of python. Serpent and singer got on well and all seemed set fair until the unfortunate discovery that one of the Three Ladies, whose job is to rid Tamino of the troublesome monster, suffered from acute and insurmountable ophidiophobia. Pawnee the python was promptly packed up again and removed from the premises.