The Magic Flute (2006 Film) - Interpretation

Interpretation

The story, which has been updated to a World War I setting, follows the structure of the original opera libretto very closely while stripping away all the Freemasonry references. All of Mozart's music for the opera is retained in the film. Tamino is still sent by the Queen of the Night to rescue her daughter Pamina after Sarastro has apparently kidnapped her, as in the original. His sidekick is still the comical Papageno, a birdcatcher in the original opera, but a man who uses underground pigeons to check for poison gas in the Branagh film. As in the original work, spoken dialogue is interspersed with the arias, duets, and choruses. There are some other updates to the plot mirroring the WW I setting, though, as well as some changes. Tamino is menaced at the beginning, not by a dragon, but by poison gas. The Three Ladies who serve as attendants to the Queen of the Night are turned into hospital nurses and the Queen herself is made more tragic and less purely evil (Upon climbing the wall of Sarastro's dwelling and seeing through the window that Tamino and Pamina have already been married, she commits suicide by deliberately letting herself fall after accidentally losing her footing). Sarastro in this version is a man in charge of a field hospital, not a high priest, and his ultimate wish is world peace, not simply the triumph of good over evil. (He is also Pamina's father, as in the 1975 Ingmar Bergman film version of the opera, and the Queen of the Night is apparently his estranged ex-wife, although this is never directly stated.) Sarastro desperately tries to save the Queen's life before she falls, unlike the character in the original opera, and, just as in the Bergman film, Monostatos commits suicide at the end. Papageno does not wear a feather filled costume as in the original stage work, nor does his sweetheart Papagena, though the pair are frequently accompanied by birds – especially chickens – and their lines are filled with clever bird references. The "water trial" that Tamino must endure occurs when the trench that he and Pamina are in becomes flooded and the trial of fire is a walk through a battlefield in which bombs are constantly exploding.

The comedy in The Magic Flute is retained faithfully in the film. As in the opera, the beautiful young Papagena pretends to be an old woman as part of one of the tests that Papageno must undergo before winning her and, again as in the original work, the film audience sees her only as an old woman until near the end (except in a two-paged spread that Papageno reads). However, because this is possible on film, the old Papagena is played by a genuine elderly woman (Liz Smith in a non-singing role), not by soprano Silvia Moi, who plays the young Papagena, while in stage versions of the opera, both characters are always played by the same singer, who, as the old woman, either covers her face and speaks with a cackle, or dons an "old woman" mask which she conveniently throws off when she turns into the young version of herself.

The film completely removes all the sexist references from the original opera libretto and plays down the so-called "racist" aspects. The black Monostatos is still a villain and would-be rapist, but nowhere in the film is it implied that this has anything to do with his race. In one aria, Monostatos broods that Pamina may not want him for a lover because of his race, much as Othello does in Shakespeare's play, when he broods over whether or not Desdemona has been unfaithful.