Criterion Collection: The Magic Flute

Director: Ingmar Bergman Ingmar Bergman

Overview

A longtime pet project of Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera The Magic Flute was finally brought to the screen in 1973. While the opera itself is offered in a highly stylized and theatrical fashion, the fluidity of the camerawork turns the affair into a purely cinematic experience. Sung in Swedish, the libretto remains as ever a gentle parody of the initiation ceremonies of the Masons, offered as an other-worldly fantasy involving a kidnapped princess (Irma Urrila), a vengeful Queen of the Night (Birgit Nordin), and a carefree wanderer who periodically plays the titular flute.

Product Details

Release Date:	03/12/2019
UPC:	0715515227216
Original Release:	1975
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[Color]
Time:	2:18:00
Sales rank:	14,035

Special Features

New 2k digital restoration, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack; Interview with Director Ingmar Bergman recorded in 1974 for Swedish television; New interview with film scholar Peter Cowie; Tystnad!: Tagning! Trollflojten! (1975), a feature-length documentary produced for Swedish television about the making of the film; Plus: An essay by author Alexander Chee

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Josef Kostlinger	Tamino
Irma Urrila	Pamina
Ulrik Cold	Sarastro
Erik Saeden	The Orator
Birgit Nordin	Queen of the Night
Håkan Hagegård	Actor
Jane Darling	Maid
Elisabeth Erikson	Papagena
Ulf Johansson	Second priest
Ansgar Krook	Young boy
Urban Malmberg	Young boy
Ragnar Ulfung	Monostatos
Kirsten Vaupel	Second Lady
Britt-Marie Aruhn	First lady
Goesta Pruezelius	First priest

Technical Credits

Ingmar Bergman

Ingmar Bergman	Director,Screenwriter
Siv Lundgren	Editor
Sven Nykvist	Cinematographer

Editorial Reviews

Music and cinema come together in the most brilliant -- and accessible -- cinematic adaptation of an opera ever made. Performed by singers who can act as well as vocalize, Ingmar Bergman's richly textured version of Mozart's The Magic Flute is a beautifully staged mixture of fairy tale and Masonic allegory that captures all of the opera's drama, humor, romance, and underlying philosophy. In the original libretto a sorcerer kidnaps Pamina, daughter of the Queen of the Night, and handsome Prince Tamino sets out to rescue her with the promised reward of her hand in marriage. Bergman makes cuts to the text and score and adds his own inventive plot points, such as turning the queen and the sorcerer into a divorced couple. Sven Nykvist, Bergman's longtime cinematographer, works visual marvels, using subtle light and shade to infuse each scene with an otherworldly atmosphere. The film was shot in Stockholm's Drottningholm Theatre in the presence of an enraptured audience, and the close-ups of delighted spectators and glimpses of the stars backstage add to the charm.

Barnes & Noble - Karen Backstein