The ENO’s Magic Flute ignores everything that makes Mozart’s opera great

A new production of The Magic Flute is something to look forward to, if with apprehension. How many aspects of this protean masterpiece will it encompass, and how many will be neglected or distorted? The answer, in the case of Simon McBurney’s effort at the Coliseum, is that almost everything that contributes to the work’s greatness is ignored or reduced, so that an evening that should be spent in a state of growing elation merely induces irritation deepening to rage, with patches of life-draining boredom. Not that the first-night audience shared my view, to judge from the roar of applause that greeted the final curtain, and the frequent guffaws and outbursts of clapping during the work.

In his note in the programme, McBurney quotes Mozart writing in a letter to his wife after one of the earliest performances of Die Zauberflöte, ‘What gives me the greatest pleasure is the silent approval.’