Well-rounded cast shines in SLO's The Magic Flute

Singapore Lyric Opera’s (SLO) pre-Christmas production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Magic Flute seemed awfully late in the year, but it was worth the wait.

- Chang Tou Liang

Incidentally, it was with this opera that SLO, then known as Singapore Lyric Theatre, made its 1991 debut at the now-repurposed Kallang Theatre in a semi-staged production.

In the latest iteration, British stage director Harry Fehr opted for an update to the near present, with an ageing Brotherhood needing fresh blood in the form of the opera’s hero Tamino.

This did little to disguise the whole enterprise as Freemasonry in all but name.

Emanuel Schikaneder (1751 to 1812) - a German actor-playwright-librettist and the original Papageno, who commissioned the opera — and Mozart were freemasons themselves.

The opera with its story of chivalry, bravery and rituals, and music of solemnity and pageantry, was a celebration of the secretive cult, then outlawed by the Habsburgs.