Last Updated on December 21, 2025
Mozart’s Opera Undergoes the Luca Silvestrini Treatment.
4.0 out of 5.0 starsMozart’s opera The Magic Flute is long, running for about three hours, and possesses a famously convoluted plot, laden with esoteric philosophical concepts. It’s very much a grown-up affair, but you wouldn’t know it from Protein’s simplified 75-minute dance-theatre adaptation, which is faithful to the original (well, mostly), highly entertaining and suitable for all ages.
Certainly, the audience at the performance of Protein’s The Magic Flute I attended at a packed The Place, an even mix of children and adults, appeared rapt throughout and more than ready to engage when audience participation was requested.
Luca Silvestrini, Protein’s artistic director, has an endlessly inventive mind, which combines with a special talent to use text, music and original choreography to create vibrant, memorable shows, served by minimal casts of highly talented and versatile stage artists.
And so it is with The Magic Flute. Silvestrini keeps the drift of the opera’s original concept: a quest for wisdom and truth, where Prince Tamino is charged by the Queen of the Night with finding her daughter Pamina, taken by the powerful Sarastro.
It goes without saying that Tamino and Pamina fall in love practically at first sight. The noble Tamino’s counterpart is the down-to-earth, comical bird-catcher Papageno; by the end of the quest, when truth is revealed and wisdom acquired, he, too, finds his love match in Papagena.
In their journey together, Tamino and Papageno encounter all manner of characters: the Queen of the Night’s Three Ladies-in-waiting, wild animals, three ghosts with large white balloons for heads, and a fiery-eyed monster, built like a two-person pantomime horse, but no less scary for that.
They do eventually meet Sarastro, who proves not to be the baddie described by the Queen of the Night, but rather the wise ruler of the Sanctuary of the Sun.
All these characters are played by four extraordinary performers, with the timing and flow of the piece so perfectly engineered, the frequent off-stage costume changes never delay the action.
South African-born Nathan Bartman’s main character is the impish, vivacious Papageno, though he doubles as one half of the monster, wild animal and ghost.
Dancer Jacob Lang is a princely Tamino, doubling as a ghost. His dancing interludes attest to his training at Rambert; he also speaks his text with authority, giving a well-rounded performance.
Faith Prendergast, a Protein regular whom I last saw a few years ago in the title role of Silvestrini’s brilliant adaptation of Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, is Pamina, doubling as the other half of the monster, wild animal and ghost. Also a trained dancer, she is an engaging actress, her Pamina a winning combination of strength and vulnerability.
Busiest is operatic singer Donna Lennard – Queen of the Night, Sarastro, Three Ladies (that’s herself and two hand-held puppets), Papagena and ghost. She offers totally assured interpretations of well-know Queen of the Night arias, making short work of their stratospherically high notes.
Their outstanding performances are framed and enhanced by a notable group of creatives. The composer Frank Moon crafted the musical score, rearranging bits of Mozart’s original music for The Magic Flute and blending them smoothly with his own composition.
The prolific Dick Bird, whose stunning designs do so much to frame and elevate English National Ballet’s new Nutcracker, still on at the Coliseum, authors simpler, but no less effective sets and costumes for The Magic Flute.
The versatile skeleton of a stage within the stage has a central screen where Douglas Baker’s atmospheric video designs create diffuse landscapes, as well as some sequences of shadow play. Two gauzy curtains, pooling on either side, become immersed in effective projections of fire and water, two of the trials Tamino has to endure before gaining admittance to the Sanctuary of the Sun.
Tamino conquers the first trial, Silence, but that proves too much for the garrulous Papageno… However, all is well that ends well, and the finale of this most engaging reading of The Magic Flute presents the cast of four, accompanied by the four little Papageno and Papagena offspring, in the shape of some very cute rag dolls.
I would certainly recommend Protein’s The Magic Flute to parents who want an intelligent and entertaining treat for their children, and indeed for themselves, during the festive season. It certainly makes a change from the glut of Nutcrackers…
Luca Silvestrini, The Magic Flute is at The Place from 20th to 24th December (morning and afternoon shows)
The Place
17 Duke’s Road
London WC1H 9PY
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