COLUMBUS, Ohio — Opera Columbus in collaboration with The People's Circus has reinvented one of Mozart's most well-known operas for the 21st century.
"'The Temple: A Magic Flute Experience' is a brand new piece that's never been performed anywhere which is weird to say because 'The Magic Flute' in its original run ran for over a hundred performances," explained Que Jones, the arranger and English librettist of the opera. "So, this music has been heard millions of times around the world...but this libretto, this story, these characters - completely new."
This revamp included not only translating and updating many of the lyrics from German into more modern English but also updating the problematic story for a 21st-century audience.
"I've never wanted to produce this show, because originally, even though beautiful music, it's incredibly racist and sexist," explained Julia Noulin-Mérat, the CEO of Opera Columbus who also served as set designer for this production.
But, once the inspiration struck to completely rework "The Magic Flute," she was excited for the challenge.
"When Julie first approached me and was like 'The Magic Flute,' I was like, 'You want to do 'The Magic Flute?' It can't translate to today,'" said Jones.
Once it was clear that the whole piece would be overhauled, they set to work cutting characters and numbers and reworking some of Mozart's most famous pieces to fit the vision.
It's blossomed into its entire own world, its own characters based off of the original, so new that we're calling it something completely different than 'The Magic Flute,' explained Allegra Libonati, director of "The Temple."
Along with the change in story, Noulin-Mérat wanted to move the opera into a nontraditional performance space.
"When Mozart originally did it, he originally did it in a beer hall," she explained.
The decision was to set the piece in a speakeasy-style underground nightclub, the location of which is closely guarded even from patrons until right before the performances.
"We really want to take our audience into an adventure...you'll get a secret code, you're going to come here, you'll say a password...there's a little bit of a process to get into the space and then, all of the sudden, to walk into this big nightclub where all of these amazing acts are happening [and] the music is pumping, I think people are going to be very excited," Noulin-Mérat said.
Noulin-Mérat stated that they wanted to execute the vision in the way that "opera does best - everything to the max" so she immediately turned to the group The People's Circus to help fill out this exciting new world.
"The People's Circus is a central Ohio-based artists cohort, primarily circus arts, but we have visual artists, designers," explained Alanna Gibson-Rex, the organization's founder. "We started out of necessity for protection for circus acts in central Ohio. It's very collaborative, it's very community-oriented, and pretty much anyone who's involved in The People's Circus, they follow a principle of kindness and community."
"If you're a huge fan of 'The Magic Flute' you get to experience all of your favorite moments, with an orchestra, live singers - opera singers - unbelievable high-level opera, in a completely different environment where you are [right next to] the opera singer," said Libonati of the atmosphere of the space which has seats right next to the entire length of the stage. "That's very thrilling and I don't think that's a very usual way to experience this opera."
"A Magic Flute Experience: The Temple" runs through April 28 at a secret location in downtown Columbus. For showtimes and ticket information, click here.