The Magic Flute
Steampunk meets Mozart in Tucson
Arizona Opera is going Steampunk this weekend.
And it’ll be in good company as it mounts a new production of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” that borrows from surrealist art and revisionist Victorian-era styles that lean more “A Clockwork Orange” than “Great Expectations.” Across town at Old Tucson, hundreds of Steampunk enthusiasts — most decked out in the requisite retro-futuristic, cyberpunked-out costumes — will gather Friday through Sunday for the Wild Wild West Con 4 Steampunk Convention & Festival, billed as the largest Western-style Steampunk convention in the U.S.
The Magic Flute’ is structured like a classic fairytale. Tamino has to go through rites of passage so that he can become a man and become a just and wise king. What we wanted to do was find a concept for the show that supported the fairytale but was sophisticated, because Mozart’s music was quite sophisticated.