Mozart - The Magic Flute [VHS]

Mozart - The Magic Flute [VHS]

Mozart - The Magic Flute [VHS]

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Category: VHS Video
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Product details

Actor: Helene Friberg, Jane Darling, Jerker Arvidson, Nina Harte, Sven-Erik Jacobsson
Primary Contributor: Josef K?stlinger
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Subtitled); Swedish (Original Language), Analog
Format: Classical, Color, NTSC
Running Time: 135 minutes
Release Date: 1995-09-26
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Publisher: Homevision
Studio: Homevision

VHS Movie Reviews of Mozart - The Magic Flute [VHS]

Movie Review: Even if you are not a fan of opera
Summary: 5 Stars

Even if you are not normally a fan of opera, you can't help but love The Magic Flute. Bergman's film, Trollfl?jten, is a clever mix of stagecraft and film effects, and a delightful introduction to this wonderful work. Although not sung in the original German, it still captures the beauty of Mozart's music and the complexities of the story--the meaning of which is still debated after all these years. His Papageno and Papagena are unforgettable, and Birgit Nordin is near perfect as the Queen of the Night. As Hermann Hesse had one of his characters say about The Magic Flute: "(it) presents life to us as a wondrous song...it preaches optimism and faith."

Movie Review: My Budding Little Opera Singer!
Summary: 5 Stars

A few years back, I was thrilled to see this Swedish production of The Magic Flute on television. It touched me so, first because I had worked on costume-making for a college production - Luther College, Decorah, Iowa back in the late '70s and was introduced to the opera for the first time then; and, second, because this production, being in Swedish, made me realize how much Norwegian I still retained from my childhood - from my Mother's Norwegian/Saami family. I ordered it and played it for my then 4-year-old youngest grandchild - Laynie. She was obviously moved by the scene - and the Aria sung by The Queen of the Night. We since discovered many versions of this Aria on YouTube, which my little one has placed on her very own playlist and along with which she sings in her very own operatic style, bursting into the opening strains on any elevator, once the doors shut and stopping abruptly when the doors open. Note: the elevator rides are mostly one floor in a building where she insists on taking it instead of the stairs! She has discovered that an elevator - like singing in the bath - has great accoustics! We view the video throughout the holiday season and will do so each year.

Movie Review: Disappointing soloists
Summary: 3 Stars

Josef Kostlinger as Tamino is barely adequate and Birgit Nordin as Queen of the Night is a major disappointment. A world class soprano is required to handle the Queen of the Night's difficult arias. Hakan Hagegard is superb as Papageno. Irma Urrila performs very well as Pamina. Apart from Hagegard, the star of the show is the Swedish Radio Chair conducted by Eric Ericson.

All in all, a pleasant enough Magic Flute, if you like it performed in Swedish. My perfect Magic Flute would be James Levine's Metropolitan Opera recording of the Magic Flute. I would keep all of his soloists (especially Kathleen Battle as Pamina and Kurt Moll as Sarastro), but replace the Metropolitan Opera Chorus with the Swedish Radio Choir or the Stockholm Chamber Choir. These choirs produce a full, rich sound without the heavy, annoying vibrato that comes from the Metropolitan Opera Chorus.

Movie Review: Wonderful!
Summary: 5 Stars

This is by far my favorite version of the Magic Flute. The actors are expressive and their voices are fantastic. The dragon is cute as can be and Papageno adds a lightheartedness. The sets are elaborate and beautiful.

Being of Swedish heritage I love that it is sung in Swedish.
A pleasurable experience.

Movie Review: Said to be a classic representation of Mozart
Summary: 3 Stars

With the limp wristed prince this strange mystical trial of a prince and his princess doesn't really come off for me. The opera house staging is poor and comic relief pheasant girl is actually more beautiful than the lead singer as the princess; which reminded me of the latest phantom of the opera
where the opera lead female singer is a primadonna of the worst kind.
The dragon at the beginning kind of looks like Barney from the children's show or a bad Japanese Godzilla movie?
The plot is probably an offense to brotherhoods of a church nature
and with Lutheran wars having just taken place in Europe
this whole mystical-mythological theme isn't up to the Wagnerian ring cycle?
So for me the legend of "Magic Flute" wasn't well represented in this presentation. I came to this opera expecting the Bergman touch,
and I didn't get it.

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Summary of Mozart - The Magic Flute [VHS]

Ingmar Bergman's Magic Flute is a magical adaptation of Mozart's last opera. The tale of two star-crossed lovers--and an impish man whose greatest desire is to find a wife--unfolds through Mozart's glorious score. With all the urgency of a live performance, it is the most successful popularization of an opera to date.

Ingmar Bergman's vision of The Magic Flute (sung here in Swedish) remains one of the indisputable classics in the opera-as-film catalog, its charm and enchantment undiminished since the film's initial release in the 1970s. This is a case not of competition between two geniuses (and two media) but of affirmative, graceful, and enlightening synergy. Instead of simply filming a staged run-through of the opera, Bergman chooses to play with the framework around such a performance (given in Stockholm's elegant Drottningholm Theatre)--and he moreover rearranges the order of the scenes in the final act. Intermittent shots of audience reactions--including those of a young girl infectiously involved in the story--and sudden, psychologically probing close-up angles result in a richly textured, multilayered effect.

Certainly Bergman renders the fairy-tale aspects of Mozart's mise-en-sc?ne with such buoyant detail that the film makes an excellent entr?e both for youngsters and for anyone who is uneasy about how to approach an opera. Yet there is much food for thought to be savored by the already initiated as well. One of Bergman's more brilliant interventions is to depict Sarastro and the Queen of the Night as a divorced couple engaged in a bitter battle over daughter Pamina. The director supplies plenty of energetic wit and arabesques of allusion (in addition to his Prospero-like demeanor, the high priest Sarastro is shown at one point during the intermission perusing the score of Parsifal), and--as might be expected of one of film's greatest symbolists--teases out the opera's weightier allegorical levels with hauntingly beautiful effect. Brilliant chiaroscuro and contrasted lighting patterns, for example, offer ongoing visual commentary on the contest between darkness and light. The cast is exceptionally photogenic, their abundant youth and obvious chemistry more than compensating for the often no-more-than-mediocre vocal performances (with the exception of H?kan Hageg?rd's utterly disarming, still-fresh portrayal of Papageno). For a desert-island audio recording, try Thomas Beecham. --Thomas May

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