Title: Magic Flute
Medium: Print
Dated: 2005
Unframed: 83cm x 59cm
Framed: 88cm x 63cm
In his 2005 production of Mozart’s, The Magic Flute (1791), William Kentridge reframes the opera’s original themes of Enlightenment philosophy through the bitter legacy of colonialism. Kentridge (Art21 2011:1) in an interview with Art21 made the statement that: “The most toxic combination in the world is…the certainty of being right and a monopoly of power.” In his rendition of the iconic opera the character of Sarastro is casted in the role of a colonial overlord, “a benevolent figure that hides a monster.”
The animation projected across and around the human figures on stage created an exuberant dialogue between drawing and music. Sometimes the animations echoed the characters’ thoughts, for example mathematical diagrams stood in for the teachings of Sarastro and his priests. Sometimes they reflected the music, with white lines reaching upward during a chorus, like fireworks. Sometimes they formed antic glosses, suddenly coalescing into birds, a lion, a dancing rhinoceros (Art21 2011:1).
In an article written by Anne Midgette for the New York Times (2007:1) The Magic Flute was explained as “a fairy tale rich in symbolism, that has attracted plenty of artists through the ages, from Karl Friedrich Schinkel, who designed sets for an 1815 production, to Oskar Kokoschka, Marc Chagall, Maurice Sendak and David Hockney.” She (Midgette 2007:1) made the comment that Kentridge’s staging of this iconic opera “harks back to Schinkel’s, citing his Egyptian imagery and the Queen of the Night’s starry firmament.”
Kentridge explained in an interview with Midgette (2007:1) that the opera is “about the power of music at the service of love” as well as “another Orpheus story.” He (Midgette 2007:1) commented that “The opera is about the difference between darkness and light.” The brilliance of Kentridge’s representation of these opposing forces was the use of the metaphor of the early camera, using the palette of a film negative (white on black), to reflect the opera’s shifting presentation of good and evil.
Watch a short clip and explanation by Kentridge: https://art21.org/watch/extended-play/william-kentridge-the-magic-flute-short/
