The Magic Flute

The Magic Flute is Ingmar Bergman's 1975 film version of Mozart's opera Die Zauberflöte. It was intended as a television production and was first shown on Swedish television on 1 January 1975, but was followed by a theatrical release later that year. The work is widely viewed as one of the most successful films of an opera ever made, and as an unusual item among the director's works. The film won BAFTA TV Award for Best Foreign Television Programme in 1976 and was nominated for Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. Background The film's inception is rooted in Bergman's youth. He first saw The Magic Flute at the Royal Opera in Stockholm when he was 12 and hoped then to recreate it in his marionette theatre at home; he could not do so because he could not afford the cost of a recording. Also while still a child, he serendipitously discovered the Baroque theater that served as the inspiration for his much-later production: As a boy I loved to roam around. One October day I set out for Drottningholm (in Stockholm) to see its unique court theater from the eighteenth century. For some reason the stage door was unlocked. I walked inside and saw for the first time the carefully restored baroque theater. I remember distinctly what a bewitching experience it was: the effect of chiaroscuro, the silence, the stage. In my imagination I have always seen The Magic Flute living inside that old theater, in that keenly acoustical wooden box, with its slanted stage floor, its backdrops and wings. Here lies the noble, magical illusion of theater. Nothing is; everything represents. The moment the curtain is raised, an agreement between stage and audience manifests itself. And now, together, we'll create! In other words, it is obvious that the drama of The Magic Flute should unfold in a baroque theater. At one stage, Bergman had hoped to direct a production at the Malmö City Theater. The origin of his filmed version was in the 1960s, when Magnus Enhörning, head of the Swedish Radio, asked him for possible projects and he replied "I want to do The Magic Flute for television". Enhörning readily agreed and supported the project without hesitation.