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The Minnesota Opera opened its current production, "The Magic Flute," on Saturday. If you're looking for a familiar production of a beloved Mozart opera, this isn't it. 

 
This remounted work from the opera's 2014 season sets "The Magic Flute" in an animated world that feels like a blend of the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" and Disney's "Fantasia," with touches of Edward Gorey and Monty Python thrown in. 


 
Video elements and live singers mingle with each other, and the effect is astonishing. An actor's head and torso may be standing still, singing, while from the waist down he has an animated pair of legs, running. The fusion is weird and hilarious, at least the first time you see it.

But then you've seen it. The next time it comes along, the hilarity is gone, and what remains is the weirdness. Mozart's final opera is strange enough, with its predatory giant snake and Egyptian gods and Masonic rituals. But the animated action, animated sets and animated props reduce everything to two dimensions, as if we were watching a projected movie instead of a staged opera.


 
That's exactly the effect the designers were striving for. In addition to the animated set, they ladled in style elements from the silent-movie era. Papageno looks like Buster Keaton and the evil Monostatos is a ringer for the vampire Nosferatu, right down to the buttons on his coat. Adding to the illusion, the lighting design gives a layer of scratches and bubbles to some of the action.


 
It's all fun to watch. But an opera is neither silent nor a movie, so why treat "The Magic Flute" as a silent movie? It's a fair question. Here's another: Does the design of this production complement the opera, or distract from it?

 
At times the human characters cross the stage, careful to remain in synch with their animated surroundings. But mostly they stand rooted to one spot, often appearing in a window or revolving door high above the floor. Think of a giant Advent calendar and you'll get the idea. To act convincingly in that static environment must be a challenge, and the singers handle it well.  


 
But none of them have it as tough as the Queen of the Night, sung by Jeni Houser. Where most of the performers have the use of their bodies, she's reduced to a head sitting atop a giant animated spider. That she's able to nail those stratospheric arias as a disembodied head is a tribute to her skill, even though the effect is a little creepy.

 
 
Creepiest of all, though, is the swarm of cartoon spiders that engulfs Pamina. A friend said she thought that scene pulled attention away from the Queen's singing, and I replied, "Oh? There was singing?"


 
The Minnesota Opera's production of "The Magic Flute" continues through Sunday at the Ordway Music Theater in St. Paul.

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Eric Ringham

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The Minnesota Opera production mashes Mozart up with animation and a silent-film motif.

'Magic Flute' is inventive fun, even if it doesn't make sense

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