Opera San Jose - The Magic Flute

Our whole family hugely enjoyed the dress rehearsal today of Opera San Jose’s production of Mozart’s sublime The Magic Flute, opening this Saturday.

Hudson and Paradise had never seen an opera before, and this homeschool-only full dress rehearsal was a wonderful opportunity for them to enjoy their introduction both to the drama and magic of The Magic Flute (read this fascinating entry at Wikipedia about its history), and to the beauty of its music and voices.

The production was a great mix of classical and contemporary, totally engaging, and attracting prolonged applause and whistles from its young audience at its conclusion. It was definitely less radical than the Peter Sellars Magic Flute, set in LA with skateboards, that I saw (and enjoyed) at Glyndebourne some years back.

We also loved the historic California Theater, which originally opened in 1927 as a music hall and movie theater, but closed its doors 30 years ago and only recently reopened after five years of restoration and reconstruction.

I took a 360Panorama shot inside the auditorium, using Occipital’s great iOS app. To get the full effect, open this link on a mobile device and activate your gyroscope where it tells you to onscreen. You can tilt all around and up and down - and especially study the beautiful ceiling.

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Alexander Stuart

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