The idea here is to present Magic Flute as a 1920’s silent movie. Now Lyric has rented the well-traveled Suzanne Andrade-Barrie Kosky production, originating from the Komische Oper Berlin, which offers yet another example of a dubious directorial concept pushing the cast and Mozart’s glorious music into the shadows-often literally. Following the final bow for the charming, beloved but aged August Everding production in 2011– 12, the company did a 180 in 2016 with a non-magical, suburban back-porch staging. The Chicago company has been at sea with Mozart’s Masonic fantasy in recent seasons.

But never has the company shown such contempt for an operatic masterwork as with its animated version of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, which opened Wednesday night at the Civic Opera House. There have been many artistic lows in the (seemingly endless) Anthony Freud era.

Sadly, the people currently in charge of Lyric Opera of Chicago are in the second group. There are two kinds of opera people in the world: those who believe that the composer’s score is the essential element and everything else is secondary and those who believe the music is merely a framework for a “show,” and that the score can be edited, altered, or sliced to accompany any revisionist production or director’s “vision.” Ying Fang (Pamina) and Huw Montague Rendall (Papageno) in Mozart’s The Magic Flute at Lyric Opera.

Magic flute lyric opera