World premiere: 30 Sep 1791 Mikhailovsky theatre, St. Petersburg, Russia
Libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder
Collaboration between the Mikhailovsky Theatre and the Opera de Lausanne under the patronage of Andre et Rosalie Hoffmann
Mozart’s opera Die Zauberflote will be performed on the Mikhailovsky’s stage in a version first seen at the Opera de Lausanne in 2010. The well-known German stage designer and director Pet Halmen decided to shift the opera’s setting to the Duchess Anna-Amalia Library in Weimar, home to a priceless collection of rare books and librettos. And although the idea for this arose following a terrible fire that broke out at the library in 2004, destroying most of the rare volumes stored there, many critics in Europe deemed the production to be one of the most vivacious and harmonious interpretations of Die Zauberflote in the modern era.