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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rated by buyers G (General Audience)
Type of bind: DVD
EAN num: 9780780023086
Format: Color, DVD-Video, Special Edition, NTSC
ISBN number: 0780023080
Label: Criterion
Manufacturer: Criterion
Quantity: 1
Picture Format: Academy Ratio
Publishing house: Criterion
Release Date: May 16, 2000
Running Time: 135 minutes
Sale Popularity Level: 10509
Studio: Criterion
Theatrical Release Date: November 11, 1975
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Description:
Ingmar Bergman puts his indelible stamp on Mozart's exquisite opera in this sublime rendering of one of the composer's best-loved works: a celebration of love, forgiveness, and the brotherhood of man. The Magic Flute (Trollflöjten) stars Josef Köstlinger as Tamino, the young man determined to rescue a beautiful princess from the clutches of parental evil. Criterion's edition features the film's glorious soundtrack in the original stereo format.
Amazon.com essential video:
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-scène with such buoyant detail that the film makes an excellent entrée 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 Håkan Hagegård's utterly disarming, still-fresh portrayal of Papageno). For a desert-island audio recording, try Thomas Beecham. --Thomas May
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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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.
Rated by buyers 
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The Magic Flute - Criterion Collection
Mozart's Magic Flute was staged with Swedish voices in this classic 1975 production for TV with subtitles in English. This Criterion release is a zone-free DVD - I played it on my HP NX6325 laptop with WINDVD and external stereo speakers and experienced no problems - and it can be played worldwide. The soundtrack is glorious, and the acting memorable. The aspect ratio is the original 4:3 [1.33 to 1] of the standard TV, thus can be viewed without the edges cut off, and without the top and bottom with grey areas on a standard format monitor. The DVD recording takes 7.8 Gb in dual layer format - thus the compression quality of the 135 minute rendition is excellent, with the uncompressed stereo sound of superb spatial definition and clarity.
The Magic Flute is considered a "Masonic" work by many - and features the battle between evil and good, where a surprise lies in that the original good turns out to be evil... etc. The leading character passes through three tests - including trials by darkness, silence and fire.
Bergman's production has been characterised as the best of all filmed productions [if you are OK with the singing in Swedish, which, being Germanic in structure, fits the original German without difficulty]. It contains the complete libretto, following Mozart's composition and Schikaneder's 1791 production characteristics as closely as could be done. This includes careful matching of stereo "sound" location with the location of the performers on the stage. (The production is filmed as if performed on stage in a Classical theatre.)
Interestingly, the heroine is destined to ultimately become the co-leader of the philosophical fraternity .... a message by Mozart for the Masons to consider? Then again, the wider theme of the stages that one must pass before achieving the great bond of masculine and feminine is an even larger theme flowing through the tale, a student of alchemical symbolism would recognise this.
The Magic Flute is a fairy tale that can appeal to audiences of all ages - and this performance is certainly able to entrance all.
"In true love you will find the origin of wisdom."
Rated by buyers -
What a wonderful production. The opera is one of Mozart's best and most melodical, the singers were all good, the sets were just right (although some of the animals were a bit over the top), and it is timeless. I have perseverated over it for the past few weeks . . . can't stop watching it . . . the best opera I've seen outside of the real thing!
Rated by buyers -
This is not exactly a movie and not exactly a documentary, but a bit of each blended to create a unique film. You will see and hear a wonderful rendition of Mozart's The Magic Flute, sung in Swedish, as presented at the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm, and you also get a glimpse of the audience and the backstage, and this contributes to the awe and delight. It is a Bergman masterpiece and so un-Bergman....no dark mood, except that which Mozart chose to include. If you like The Magic Flute and the movies, this is THE video you want to keep and watch over and over.
Rated by buyers 
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Ingmar Bergman's 1975 film/tv version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera The Magic Flute (Trollflöjten) is a serviceable film, and nothing that really takes advantage of either of its media- opera and film, to its fullest; although it begs the question as to why it was ever made? It is basically a filmed version of the play (although the singing was recorded beforehand and looped in to the film, thus allowing the actors to emote without worrying of their singing)- replete with shots of a gawking audience, but very little new is added to the tale. Yes, it's sung in Swedish, and there are a few minor changes, such as the sorcerer Sarastro being Pamina's father- which adds a tinge of Bergmanian and Freudian angst to the opera, and a few scenes being reordered, but overall it's the same familiar tale.
While watching it I wondered what such a film of Swan Lake, by Federico Fellini, would have been like. Doubtless, it would have been more over the top than this production, but that fact only reinforces my query as to why film this opera the way it is filmed? Yes, Bergman is almost as famed as a stage director as he is a film director, and there are some scenes of `backstage' antics- especially during a several minute long Intermission, where the actor playing Sarastro, Ulrik Cold- his real name, is shown reading the score of another opera, Parsifal, and another actor is reading a Donald Duck comic book, but the tale itself is rather straightforward, and at two hours and fifteen minutes, a bit too long, even if abridged from the over three hours of the opera; although one can go to the bathroom and not miss much of what is going on.... Overall, however, The Magic Flute succeeds as a film not because of Bergman's considerable skills in his art form, nor the acting skills of his cast, but because of their singing skills, and the music of Mozart. That one great artist, at his height, can aid another great artist, at less than his height, is nothing to be ashamed of, but it does make for a rather average viewing experience, something quite rare when that artist is named Ingmar Bergman.
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