UNE FLÛTE ENCHANTÉE

We propose a light, effervescent Flute, where an intimacy with the performers will allow the tenderness and the depth of the score to appear.

- PETER BROOK, FRANCK KRAWCZYK, MARIE-HÉLÈNE ESTIENNE.

This is not La Flûte Enchantée (The Magic Flute) but Une Flûte Enchantée (A Magic Flute), the revealing, pared-down and intimate vision which Peter Brook (London, 1925), together with composer Franck Karwczyk and adaptor Marie-Hélène Estienne, created from Mozart's score and Emanuel Schikaneder's text. It is not the first time that Brook has taken on opera, having produced Don Giovanni, Impressions of Pelléas and The Tragedy of Carmen amongst others, through the celebrated Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord theatre in Paris, from which he finally stepped down as artistic director last December after 36 years.

As with his other adaptations, Peter Brook has freed this operatic work from the conventions of the genre. The stage is stripped of all but the essentials, with just a carpet, some bamboo stalks, a piano and a group of barefooted actors who sing in German and perform according to a French script. It is, in the words of the director, "a Magic Flute far from the expected way. The vast panoply of scenic effects, the heavy and solemn symbolism are all put aside. In their place, the audiences will find an ever-young Mozart surrounded by an equally young and talented cast of singers and musicians ready, like the composer, to improvise, transpose, to explore new colours, to juggle with forms."

Une Flûte Enchantée was premiered on November 9, 2010 in the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord and has since received considerable critical and public acclaim.

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