During World War I, in an unnamed country, a soldier named Tamino is sent by the Queen of the Night to rescue her daughter Pamina from the clutches of the supposedly evil Sarastro. But all is not as it seems.
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Stars: Joseph Kaiser, Amy Carson, René Pape.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475331/
Watched on AmazonPrime.
It's official: I do not like this opera.
KB setting it in WW1 trenches/battlefields doesn't help. Too many scenes are dreary, cold, miserable.
The opera goes down a negative rabbit hole too often, with the characters manic for either love or death, as in suicide because love is out of reach, not due to war (although that happens here too, but not to our principals).
Worthy effort by KB, Stephen Fry and everyone, but this opera irritates me. It was probably too soon after watching the prior production: Mozart: The Magic Flute (2003), 6 on 29Dec, this being 12Jan.
Rated 6.6 (1,029)
indie, dir. Branagh; 5
