71 The Magic Flute

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quequeg
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71 The Magic Flute

#1 Post by quequeg » Sat Nov 13, 2004 8:15 pm

The Magic Flute

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This scintillating screen version of Mozart's beloved opera showcases Ingmar Bergman's deep knowledge of music and gift for expressing it cinematically. Casting some of Europe's finest soloists—Josef Köstlinger, Ulrik Cold, Håkan Hagegård, and Birgit Nordin among them—the director lovingly recreated the baroque theater of Sweden's Drottningholm Palace to stage the story of the prince Tamino and his zestful sidekick Papageno, who are sent on a mission to save a beautiful princess from the clutches of evil. A celebration of love and forgiveness that exhibits a profound appreciation for the artifice and spectacle of the theater, The Magic Flute is among the most exquisite opera films ever made.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Interview with director Ingmar Bergman recorded in 1974 for Swedish television
• New interview with film scholar Peter Cowie
Tystnad! Tagning! Trollflöjten! (1975), a feature-length documentary produced for Swedish television about the making of the film
• PLUS: An essay by author Alexander Chee

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Lino
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#2 Post by Lino » Sun Nov 14, 2004 5:23 am

quequeg wrote:Although I am not an opera fan, I found this film to be delightful, but a little slow. I couldn't keep from falling asleep the first two times I tried to watch it. The staging is spectacular, and I loved the way Bergman focused on the faces in the audience. The extreme close-ups of the actors, however, sometimes took me out of the film as I focused on the blemishes on their faces.

One thing I noticed puzzles me. During the close-ups of the beautiful young girl in the audience, her face is covered with fast-moving, faint white dots. This happens with every shot of the girl, but not with any of the other close-up shots. The dots seem to be only in the center of the frame. Can anybody suggest what caused this phenomenon?
Maybe the fact that she is Bergman's daughter? Now seriously, I have no idea as to the white dots. Print damage, I suppose.

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Brian Oblivious
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#3 Post by Brian Oblivious » Thu Nov 18, 2004 6:46 pm

I'm no opera buff, but boy was I impressed by Peggy Woolcock's recent version of John Adams' Death of Klinghoffer.

I saw clips from Mitterand's 1995 Madame Butterfly which intrigued me too.

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#4 Post by denti alligator » Thu Nov 18, 2004 7:03 pm

I do know a thing or two about opera (my wife's a professional opera singer), and I have to say, the singing on this one is nothing to write home about.

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#5 Post by Michael Kerpan » Thu Nov 18, 2004 8:50 pm

The singing is just passable overall -- and the re-writing of the story in places is artistically dubious. I've seen "Magic Flutes" I've liked better -- but then "Magic Flute" is not my favorite Mozart opera (not even in the top 3).

Denti -- what kind of roles does your wife sing?

MEK

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#6 Post by Michael Kerpan » Sat Nov 20, 2004 12:09 pm

...it's the opera I'm ambivalent about. Bergman tries to allay some of the very problems I have with the text -- but he does it by changing the story. Cinematically, he does as well with this as one is likely to be able to do. However, if he had tackled "Cosi fan tutte" (probably my favorite opera)I suspect I would be a lot more enthusiastic. As it is, I have to accept "Smiles of a Summer Night" as his substitute for "Cosi" -- and I can live with that. ;~}

MEK

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#7 Post by mahler » Sat Nov 20, 2004 10:43 pm

MK,

Just curious, but is it the musical text you're referring to or the literary one, if you could even call it that?

I share your preference for the da Ponte operas (with Figaro probably being my overall favorite opera) over the Magic Flute, but can't see them lending themselves quite as well to a Bergman film. Given the merely passable musical performance we get in this film, for me the revelatory moments come in the scenes of spoken dialogue, where Bergman had much more control over the pacing and mood. In every other performance I've seen or heard of The Magic Flute, the dialogue is treated as little more than a diversion, or at best, an opportunity to get a laugh or two. In Bergman's film, however, these scenes often achieve on a depth of expression you could never get in an opera house performance. So, for me, this film actually enhances my overall appreciation for this opera, something I can't say for any other opera-to-film I've seen (most I just want to purge from memory as soon as possible). As interesting as it might have been, I just can't see Bergman getting the same results with one of the da Ponte operas, since with those, the recitative would largely dictate the atmosphere of the conversations rather than Bergman. I have to admit, though, that I would have liked to see what he came up with.

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Michael Kerpan
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#8 Post by Michael Kerpan » Sat Nov 20, 2004 11:31 pm

> Just curious, but is it the musical text you're referring to
> or the literary one, if you could even call it that?

The "dramatic" narrative. I find this almost incoherent. Things may make some sense in the context of a particular scene -- but scene to scene relationships are pretty confused. Some people have tried to derive deep meaning from this -- but I've never believed in any of this.

"Recitiative" in the da Ponte operas is typically almost as glossed over as the dialog in "Flute". Really good performances (for me) depend almost as much on how well these are handled as on how prettily the big musical numbers are sung.

I suspect handling recitiatives effectively might well be harder to deal with in cinema than simple spoken dialog.

FWIW, right now, my favorite opera video is one of Wagner's "Meistersinger", starring Gosta Winbergh and Wolfgang Brendel.

MEK

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#9 Post by rlendog » Mon Nov 22, 2004 7:27 pm

I found the Losey Don Giovanni to be awful.

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Jun-Dai
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#10 Post by Jun-Dai » Mon Nov 22, 2004 8:50 pm

I have never seen, nor even really heard of a great film adaptation of an opera. My theory is that it would be an almost impossible task, unless the film was written as an opera, rather than simply being an adaptation of an opera. Luchino Visconti would perhaps be one of the few directors well qualified for the task, and he never tried (though his films are frequently referred to as "operatic"). It is also perhaps relevant that the music in opera is generally considered untouchable (insofar as any alterations are readily noticeable to the audience). It is acceptable to rewrite the libretto, to change the setting (usually to a modern one), even edit the music somewhat, but it is unacceptable to rewrite the music (or write new music), which is a kind of sacredness that even Shakespeare doesn't have. This, among other things, is one of the factors that limits the production of great opera->film adaptations.

That said, there are a number of mediocre ones out there, and The Magic Flute is one of the finest. Losey's Don Giovanni is very good neither as opera nor as film, but as a conjunction of the two it isn't bad if only because its competition is worse.

The genre has developed much more poorly than even the genre of war films.

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#11 Post by Quirky77 » Mon Nov 22, 2004 9:19 pm

Hey Guys,
I haven't seen it myself (not for lack of wanting, but rather because I want to savor the moment), but Tarkovsky's version of Boris Gudonov is on DVD, and is supposed to be very good. It was made in 1987, but followed Tarkovsky's directions and designs from his 1983 Covent Garden Production.
Unfortunately, I've never heard of any footage avaiable for his Hamlet from 1980. Very lucky audience...

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#12 Post by Fellini-Hexed » Mon Nov 22, 2004 9:21 pm

I'm a complete neophyte when it comes to opera (I'm not even one of those pesky near-neophytes!), so my comments can be read in that context, but...

Just saw this film, and found it charming. And wanting. I thought it would make sense if it had been released in the context of Bergman's prolific body of TV adaptations (as part of a larger set, perhaps), but fared poorly on its own in the CC catalogue. It just doesn't seem to warrant that kind of attention. It was clever, and even though untrained ears like mine could detect some sour notes, it was still a pleasant listening experience. But it was very light fare. In fact, I kept thinking it was a little too clever, with the use of subtitles, etc. Cute. A light opera by nature, you could argue, true, true. But I couldn't help thinking it made sense as a TV feature only.

The audience close-ups during the overture I found pretty gratuitous, obvious, even. Yup, it's an audience. No doubt about it!

Perhaps I've been prejudiced by other of Bergman's films, which I've been gobbling up gleefully. This seems fluff by comparison, which is probably unfair.

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#13 Post by MichaelB » Sun Dec 03, 2006 1:31 pm

Quirky77 wrote:I haven't seen it myself (not for lack of wanting, but rather because I want to savor the moment), but Tarkovsky's version of Boris Gudonov is on DVD, and is supposed to be very good. It was made in 1987, but followed Tarkovsky's directions and designs from his 1983 Covent Garden Production.
It's very good indeed - comfortably the most intelligent and probing staging of Boris that I've seen, the others being a resoundingly traditional Bolshoi production using the Rimsky-Korsakov bowdlerisation and a bizarre Kirov effort from a few years back. Provided you make allowances for the fact that it's a filmed stage production (and, if I remember rightly, one originally broadcast live) it's well worth seeing.

Unfortunately, the DVD has a dreadful PAL-to-NTSC conversion which produces artefacts galore. The vast majority of classical DVDs seem to be NTSC, which is understandable as the US and Japan are the two biggest markets, but if the source material is PAL (as was the case here), you're out of luck. The sound is fine, though, so it's not a complete disaster.

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#14 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Jun 15, 2007 2:26 pm


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#15 Post by Tom Amolad » Tue Jan 15, 2008 6:53 pm

Lino wrote:Maybe the fact that she is Bergman's daughter?
I've always heard this too, but I believe it's an urban legend. According to IMDB, she's Helene Friberg, no relation to Bergman.

In the audience you will find Bergman's wife Ingrid (no, not that Ingrid Bergman), his son Daniel (who went on to direct the dull-beyond-belief Sunday's Children, from his father's script), Erland Josephson, Liv Ullmann, and Sven Nykvist.

Tom

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Re: 71 The Magic Flute

#16 Post by SalParadise » Fri Jun 21, 2013 5:04 am

Just want to ask:

I recently obtained a copy of the Criterion release of The Magic Flute. I've never seen it and was wondering as this release is relatively old, is it worth holding out for the possibility of a restoration and Bluray release?

Thanks.

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Re: 71 The Magic Flute

#17 Post by teddyleevin » Fri Jun 21, 2013 10:51 am

Not really. The transfer on the release is good enough and capable of all sorts of enchantment. If you're asking whether to hold off on watching it for the first time, I say, nay. Don't delay your enjoyment.

As far as being a collector goes...
As much as I adore this film, I think they've got more essential/profitable Bergmans to upgrade and unless there's a restoration already being done on it, they'll probably leave it the way it is. I don't know if this older title runs any risk of going OOP, but given how cheap the DVD range is, there's no reason not to own it and hang on to it.

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Re: 71 The Magic Flute

#18 Post by MichaelB » Fri Jun 21, 2013 12:08 pm

It was shot on 16mm for Swedish television, so while there's certainly room for improvement (and I'd buy a Blu-ray like a shot), it won't be anything like as spectacular as other Bergman upgrades. Which is why I suspect it isn't a huge priority.

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Gregory
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Re: 71 The Magic Flute

#19 Post by Gregory » Fri Jun 21, 2013 12:10 pm

Some of Criterion's very first blu-ray upgrades were films shot on 16mm. Even if it's not as spectacular, it could still be a priority. It would sell not only to our arthouse ilk but to the considerably large base of people who buy opera on Blu-ray. The DVD has a respectable 98 reviews on Amazon and good ratings at IMDb.

By all means, watch and enjoy the current disc but be prepared for it to look awful by usual Criterion DVD standards. I'm not exactly sure just how much better it could look on Blu, but it would surely be worth at least a lower-tier upgrade, even if no major restoration has been done.

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Re: 71 The Magic Flute

#20 Post by zedz » Fri Jun 21, 2013 4:20 pm

I believe The Magic Flute is a bit of an odd duck as far as opera films go because it's sung in Swedish, and this limits the crossover audience (who are just looking for a decent filmed version of the opera) drastically. I'd say grab the DVD in the next sale.

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Gregory
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Re: 71 The Magic Flute

#21 Post by Gregory » Fri Jun 21, 2013 4:33 pm

There's definitely a market for films of the Magic Flute in various stagings ("re-imaginings," even) and languages, Branagh's being a more recent example. Most of the praise I've seen for the Bergman came from opera fans rather than Bergman fans. I believe the biggest obstacle to some of the lower-tier DVDs getting upgrades is that when they had little or no extras to begin with (such as this one and Summertime), then Criterion has to either come up with a bunch of extras in addition to doing a new transfer etc. or price the Blu-ray at $30 SRP and accept that there will still be grumbling about the lack of extras even at the lower price point. It's something they'll have to face more and more as they upgrade more and more blue-chip titles to upgrade and are left with lower-tier odds and ends.

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Re: 71 The Magic Flute

#22 Post by matrixschmatrix » Fri Jun 21, 2013 4:42 pm

It seems as though they do a full re-issue with the early spine numbers a majority of the time- off the top of my head, the only ones that weren't were things like Charade or Last Temptation that already had a commentary. God knows there's enough meat in a Bergman/Mozart collaboration for any number of solid extras.

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Re: 71 The Magic Flute

#23 Post by teddyleevin » Sat Jun 22, 2013 1:23 am

zedz wrote:I believe The Magic Flute is a bit of an odd duck as far as opera films go because it's sung in Swedish, and this limits the crossover audience (who are just looking for a decent filmed version of the opera) drastically. I'd say grab the DVD in the next sale.
Being in the weird overlap category (double major in Cinema Studies and Opera Performance), I think it's the best version of Flute ever put on film (certainly better than Branagh's, which is something of a mess). Opera films rarely leave me satisfied (my other favorite is coincidentally the P&P Hoffmann...despite the many, many cuts), and I wish Bergman had done more, and I certainly hope a potential release will uncover some sort of supplement that discusses the process. He directed so many plays, did he ever direct a stage opera production?

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Re: 71 The Magic Flute

#24 Post by ola t » Sat Jun 22, 2013 5:44 am

teddyleevin wrote:He directed so many plays, did he ever direct a stage opera production?
Yup, at least twice at the Royal Opera in Stockholm: Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress in 1961, and Daniel Börtz's The Bacchae in 1991. Bergman also wrote the libretto for the latter (based on Euripides, of course), which was filmed and shown on TV (along with a making-of docu, unless my memory is playing tricks with me) but is not available on DVD as far as I know.

He also had a smash hit here in Malmö in 1954 with Lehar's The Merry Widow.

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Re: 71 The Magic Flute

#25 Post by kidc85 » Sun Jun 23, 2013 5:24 pm

zedz wrote:I believe The Magic Flute is a bit of an odd duck as far as opera films go because it's sung in Swedish, and this limits the crossover audience (who are just looking for a decent filmed version of the opera) drastically.
It was my impression that, being a Singspiel, opera buffs are more open to the idea of performing MF in whatever language the cast is most comfortable with. It's certainly the only opera I've seen at the ENO or ROH that wasn't performed in its original language.

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