Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Die Zauberflote , 1791. Costume sketch by Winckelmann for a performance at Vienna, Kindertheater, 19th century.

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Bringing Mozart to the Kids... Spectacular Costumes and Props in the Magic Flute

Shadow puppets designed by Carl Day The Magic Flute, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was produced at Brigham Young University-Idaho, Winter Semester, 2008 on the Snow Drama Theatre Stage. Synopsis Tamino, a prince from a distant land is battling a serpent. Overcome with fatigue he faints and as he is about to be killed, the three ladies who are servants to the Queen of the Night slay the serpent and rescue him. When he comes to, they show him a picture of Pamina with whom he falls madly in love. The Queen of the Night appears and pleads with Tamino to rescue her daughter from the evil Sarastro. He agrees, and with his new found trusty sidekick Papageno, the birdman, he sets out to find her and free her from bondage. On his journey, however it is revealed that the Queen of the Night is the evil one and Sarastro is the benevolent one. In order to become a modern man, and win the hand of Pamina, Tamino must pass through a number of trials. Papageno also finds his soulmate, the beautiful birdgirl Papagena. Finally, when Tamino and Pamina have passed through the trials of fire and water, the Queen of the Night and her evil henchman Monostatos are vanquished and the two are married. Concept This production was co-directed by Jon Linford of the BYU-Idaho Music Department and John Bidwell of the BYU-Idaho Theatre Department. Jon suggested the concept that when European strength and vitality met Eastern sophistication and philosophy, the Renaissance was born. We discussed what this meant at some length and determined that our hero, Tamino would be a northern barbarian who would slowly transform throughout the opera until he became a "modern" man. Execution We had a very talented young costume design student named Julie Brown that was trying to beef up a portfolio so she could apply to graduate school. I agreed to take her on as an assistant designer for this show. Julie was very good and so I decided she should be more of an associate designer and I gave her Pamina and the three spirits, as well as many of the chorus members to design. She did a wonderful job on those costumes. As part of the agreement, though since I was the designer of record, I retained right of approval on her costumes. I do not feel that I abused that authority, however. One challenge we had was the fact that many of the roles were double cast. Tamino and Pamina, the Queen of the Night, and Papagena were all double cast. Of all the characters, only the actresses who played Pamina were the same size. For example, one of the queens of the night was at least six inches taller than the other. So we had to build double costumes in some cases and find creative solutions in others. As I was pondering the role of Tamino, I recalled an album cover of a 1970's southern rock band named Molly Hatchet. It had a barbarian carrying a battleaxe and wearing a winged helm This was my initial inspiration for his character. I also really liked the fact that I could inject a little Rock and Roll into an opera. Afterall, Mozart, in my opinion, was a rockstar in his day. I viewed Tamino as a Viking and dressed him in a blue tunic with an animal skin cape, breeches with cross gartered boots and the feathered helm. I also had a student and good friend, Robert McKenzie build a Scottish targe for him. In addition to that I bought him a bearded axe. Tamino in battle dress with axe and targe Tamino vanquished, with helm and targe The transformation of Tamino began in the first scene when the three ladies remove his helm, take his axe and targe. The transformation begins As Tamino grew more and more civilized, he lost more and more of the northern barbarian look and became more refined. After the weapons and armor were taken, the next step of the transformation was the animal skin cloak. Tamino continued to change, sporting neatly coifed, dark hair in an 18th century style, no mustache, and wearing penitent's robes Tamino in penitent's robes Finally, when he has passed all Sorastro's tests, Tamino is transformed into a modern Renaissance man in full 18th century regalia. I found a piece of upholstery fabric at Home Fabrics in Idaho Falls, Idaho that was a blue chenille with a great gold thread design. I knew it had to be Tamino's suit. We also covered his tri-corn hat with it. Tamino's suit (promo shot) Pamina, Sarastro and Tamino as the newly enlightened Sarastro was played by the great Norman Bailey, who celebrated his 75th birthday by coming out of retirement to play the role. Sarastro's tunic and robes were also made of upholstery fabric and his hat was actually a fur covered band hat that we refurbished and wrapped with linen. The Queen of the Night was an interesting challenge to design. The first time we see her we need to identify with her because we believe she is an injured mother who only wants the return of her daughter. The second time we meet her we realize that she is the embodiment of pure evil. In addition to this she must be at all times spectacular. I decided she should be in full 18th century costume with the underdress, paniers and an overdress. I also cheated just a little and gave her an Elizabethan standing collar in black boned lace. I designed an enormous hooded cape for her out of sheer purple and blue organza which she kept on for the entirety of her first entrance. The cape hid the sinister, 18th century horned goddes wig that we styled. I found a dark purple tafetta with a swag design which we turned upside down and cut out the bottom row of swags which gave it a batwing design. This I backed with a pleated black satin ruffle about nine inches long. The overdress was constructed out of a black chenille with gold thread and trimmed in purple. Finally, the hood was large and the cape was 20 feet long by 15 feet wide. The edges were cut with a batwing profile and made sturdy by sewing tie-line in the hem. We also had wooden rods for her hands to hold the cape out at different moments of the aria. I found some pointy witch shoes online and finished the costume by adding about a hundred dollars of colorless acrylic gems to all parts of the costume, including her earrings, shoes and wig. Her first entrance was stunning. She had her back to the audience and was in total darkness. The front of the stage was lit so we barely saw her silhouette against the black star drop. The cape was spread out over the stairs and when the lights bled up over the stage it was breathtaking. She turned and delivered her first aria without removing the hood or the cape. On her second aria she was without the hood and we saw the horned wig for the first time and through costume realized she was evil Unfortunately, someone released the spotlight crew on picture call night so we don't have images with the correct lighting in many cases. That's a shame as it was a beautiful lighting design. The Queen of the Night More the Queen of the Night Can't get enought of the Queen of the Night The horned goddess wig (promo shot) I decided to use alot of feathers for the bird people, Papageno and Papagena. I also decided to color coordinate them as they would be in nature. Yellow and orange seemed appropriate to me, possibly because canaries are harmless and their only purpose in life is to sing and be delightful. I viewed Papageno and Papagena in that way. I asked Lindsay Lopez to design their makeup and requested that she incorporate ostrich plumes into their eyebrows. I also asked Celeste Harper to style the wigs. She styled an 18th century wig for Papageno which abracted a coxcomb on top and an 18th century ladies wig for Papagena with ostrich plumes woven throughout. Papageno was dressed in traditional 18th century garb except that he tended to sprout yellow and orange feathers from the seams in his jacket. He also had a yellow and orange collar made of a feather boa. Papageno also sported a shaved ostrich plume tail. Papageno Papagena comes to Papageno disguised as an old hag. He has to prove himself to her before she is revealed as the beautiful bird girl. I told Patty Randall, the costume shop director that I wanted Papagena to be able to begin as the old hag, turn around one time and be revealed as the beautiful bird girl, complete with an ostrich plume tail. But I didn't want anyone to assist her and I didn't want any fabric from the old hag left on stage. In other words I wanted magic. If we had allowed an assitant or allowed fabric to be left on stage it would have been easy. All we would have had to do is remove a cloak and voila she would be revealed. I didn't want anything that easy. I wanted the hag costume to melt away and the bird girl to appear. I wanted jaws to drop. Patty is a very gifted pattern maker and came up with a solution to this impossible problem almost without any hesitation. It involved Papagena getting dressed in her bird girl costume, then lifting everything up and stepping into the hag costume but tied at the waist and pulled up to conceal the pretty costume. Then we added witch gloves which were long opera gloves dyed grey with witch fingertips glued to the fingers. Papagena would say her last lines as the hag while carefully pulling her fingers out of the gloves, then she would turn around and part the hag robe with her hands and gravity did the rest. The transformation was spectacular. The old crone literally melted away and Papagena appeared and the audience had a collective jaw drop every night. And there was no fabric left behind. Magic. Papageno and the Hag Papageno and Papagena Papageno and Papagena For Monostatos, I pulled his costume primarily from stock. A piece from one show, another piece from a different one and so on. Where I really had fun with his costume, though was in the accessories. I made him a heavy beaded necklace with imitation human vertabrae and finger bones tied into it. I braided bones into his hair and bought a massive shamshir (curved sword). I also gave him a "ZZ Top" style beard as another homage to Rock and Roll. Monostatos The Two Armed Men were fun costumes to create. I went back to my high school days and the first costume I ever designed to create them. I was cast as the 4th Knight in Once Upon a Mattress and complained to my teacher that I needed armor if I was going to be a knight. He said I'd have to build it myself and suggesed I make it out of milk jugs. Long story short, I did and it turned out great, both in high school and in The Magic Flute. I credit that high school experience as the one that really got me on the path to being a designer I rented helmets for the two armed men and decorated them with coque feathers. We had some old vacuum formed scale armor breastplates that I used, and then I outfitted them with heavy knit thermal underwear that was dyed grey, then I cut out armor pieces out of milk jugs and plastic soda bottles. We painted them and stitched them to the thermal underwear. The gauntlets, though were the best part. I bought grey cotton knit gloves and cut out finger armor from the handles on the milk jugs and then stitched the handles to the fingers on the gloves. I've used that on Halloween costumes for my boys as well. It's a really great way to get cool armor cheap. I finished the costumes off with high boots and breeches from costume stock. The final touch and my last homage to Rock Music were the rockstar wigs I put on these two men. Two armed men in "milk jug armor" Julie's designs for this show were very good. She clothed Pamina in a blue-green tafetta gown with a sheer organza veil. Both the gown and the veil were embroidered. She looked stunning. Pamina's gown Jon Linford, the co-director said he wanted the Three Spirits to look like Mozart as a child. The Three Spirits are pants roles for women, by the way. Julie designed these wonderful skirted vests and frocks for them, each in a different color. I felt they were missing something because they were supposed to be spirits and yet they were really grounded in reality. I happened upon a 1908 lithograph for the original Le Chevalier D'Eon which showed in the bottom left corner, a child wearing 18th century garb but with insect wings. I knew we had several sets of Victoria's Secret style angel wings and knew it was the right thing to add. I had to convince Julie of this but I think she was okay with it by the end. The wings didn't obscure any of the costumes she had designed, they just gave the Three Spirits just enough whimsy to suggest they were from a different world. To my knowledge that is the only alteration I made to any of Julie's designs. The Three Spirits We have done several biblical shows over the years and we have a great deal of biblical costumes in stock. We used these to outfit the priestly chorus. The Priestly Chorus I had never been a fan of opera before this one. Jon Linford has an enthusiasm for the medium that is infectious, though. This opera was a true joy to work on. Satisfying in every way. The collaboration of the whole design team worked very well. Since this experience, I've given opera another chance and have enjoyed the other three I've worked on since. Production Details Directed by Jon Linford and John Bidwell Costume Design by Gary Benson Associate Costume Designer: Julie Brown Hogge Scene Design by Richard Clifford Lighting Design by Brent Prichett Costume Shop Director: Patty Randall Technical Director: Ray Versluys

Size Chart ST Size Measurement Standard Metric Standard Staff Height 56" 142cm Inches Centimeters

Perfect for Halloween costumes, this striking Evil Queen Crown is super easy to create! The templates come as SVG cut files, as well as PDF files if you prefer to cut out by hand. PLEASE NOTE: You will be purchasing the digital templates only, NOT the finished products. A link will be made available to you soon after purchase, and the files will be compressed within a zip folder, which you will need to extract before use. SVG Cut Files The download comes with 2 SVG cut files. One has solid score lines (for cutting machines that can score) and one has the more traditional dashed lines, which your machine will cut out as small perforations. PLEASE NOTE: The SVG files are compatible with Cricut Design Space and Silhouette Studio Designer Edition. Results may vary with other cutting machine software. PDF Templates The download also comes with a black and white PDF template (outline only), which will create a crown with a headband measuring approximately 3cm high. This is only meant as a guide, as the template can easily be re-sized before printing to suit your needs. Step by step assembly instructions are also included in the download as a separate PDF file. All of the instructions are written clearly in English. To make your very own Evil Queen Crown, you will need: * Computer and printer to print the PDF template and instructions * Digital cutting machine * Double-sided cardstock (220-250gsm / 80-92lb recommended). I used core'dinations Colour Core Cardstock - Black Cat, 250gsm. * Craft glue If you are not using a cutting machine you will also need: * Craft knife / scissors * Scoring tool * Ruler For more details and instructions: Visit my blog: https://essellecrafts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/diy-evil-queen-crown.html Or watch my video tutorial: https://youtu.be/deSzzHxYJ44 Any questions, please feel free to ask, and I will do my best to answer them. © 2020 Esselle Crafts This template is for personal use only, and no part of the template is to be sold, reproduced, modified, shared or distributed.

Mozart’s Magic Flute may be a “timeless masterpiece,” an “immortal classic” full of music that will last forever. It’s also very specifically a child of 1791. Everything about this opera—its plot, characters, world, range of musical styles, and themes—makes much more sense when considered in its historical context. Musically, The Magic Flute is hugely significant as the first great Zauberoper, the German tradition of popular musical theater on fantasy subjects that eventually gives us such operas as Wagner’s Ring. In terms of the visual arts, it sits on the fulcrum between eighteenth-century neo-classicism and nineteenth-century Romanticism. Images from productions of this opera in its first few decades illustrate how Romantic art emerged from neo-classicism. The First Production Mozart’s pal Emanuel Schikaneder, who wrote Flute’s libretto and created the role of Papageno, ran a ramshackle theater on the outskirts of Vienna that played for a popular, suburban audience. It was the antithesis of the royal theater, where the Vienna premieres of Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte hadn’t been particularly successful. A pair of brothers, Joseph and Peter Schaffer, published engravings based on the very first visual realization of the opera, one which is a long way from the aesthetics of Romanticism. “Here, lovely ladies, let me give you my birds!” Tamino, the Three Ladies, and Papageno in the first scene. Notice how the ladies have chopped up the “Don’t Tread On Me” serpent that was threatening Tamino; an early interpretation posited that the ladies represent religion (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, or else three branches of Christianity) and the serpent symbolized new-fangled Enlightenment ideals, such as Freemasonry. The temple at the back would have been painted on canvas; the rocks would be wing units. Engraving by Joseph and Peter Schaffer. “Blessed flute, your music brings joy even to the wild beasts!” Costumes for people playing animals have obviously improved greatly since the late eighteenth century! But at least Schikaneder et. al. seem to have added some birds, presumably descending from the fly loft. Gluck ommitted this scene—“Orpheus uses music to charm the wild beasts”—from his highly serious Orpheus opera, written when Mozart was a kid. Engraving by Joseph and Peter Schaffer. “Long live Sarastro!” The stage directions call for Sarastro to make his first entrance in a chariot drawn by six lions, which (like his totemic sun-circle) identify him with the sun. It’s hard to say exactly how that was done in 1791; most modern productions omit the lions. Notice that the chorus are in “Turkish” dress, although Pamina looks fashionably European. Engraving by Joseph and Peter Schaffer. “Tamino, won’t you speak to your Pamina? Don’t you love me anymore?” Act 2 Scene 18 played against a canvas drop with an uncanny resemblance to the Cambridge, MA tomb of Mary Baker Eddy. The advantage of canvas drops, of course, is that scene changes (and there are loads of them in The Magic Flute) can be instantaneous. Engraving by Joseph and Peter Schaffer. “Away with you, young woman! Papageno is not yet worthy!” This (canvas drop) set for a moment from the Act Two trial sequence includes Masonic elements—pyramid, arches, shining star, large urn—that also feature in an image printed with the Magic Flute libretto, as supplied to audiences at Schikaneder’s theater in 1791. Engraving by Joseph and Peter Schaffer. “Here are the gates of terror, threatening pain and death.” Tamino, Pamina, and the Two Armored Men sing their quartet before a canvas drop representing the Trials by Fire and Water. The tablet upstage center presumably carries the text read by the Two Armored Men at the beginning of the scene (“He who walks this most difficult of paths...”). Engraving by Joseph and Peter Schaffer. Joseph Quaglio’s 1793 Munich Production Scenic designs survive for an early Magic Flute production in the deep-perspective architectural style of Italian Baroque theater. A few families dominated this tradition; thus, names such as Sormani (creator of Seattle Opera’s old Tosca scenery) and Quaglio come up again and again. Lorenzo Quaglio created the sets for the world premiere of Mozart’s Idomeneo in 1781. Ten years later, his son Joseph Quaglio’s designs gave The Magic Flute a bit more grandiosity and dignity than may have been the style at Schikaneder’s theater, even if they don’t look much farther than Venice for exotic effect. “If you deem Tamino worthy, follow my example.” This impressive Gothic cathedral/Pantheon with palm trees seems to be the meeting room for Sarastro and the priests at the beginning of Act Two. Design by Joseph Quaglio. Presumably the scene in Act Two when the Three Spirits bring Tamino and Papageno flute, bells, and a meal, midway through their trials. The scene would involve a deus ex machina (a popular solution to the entrances of the Spirits) and a canvas drop—but one which, in this case, eschewed symmetry for this wonderfully skewed perspective on arcades in Sarastro’s campus. Design by Joseph Quaglio. The Deadly Trials by Fire and Water. Quaglio may have used a ground row instead of a canvas drop, giving this scene more dimensionality. Design by Joseph Quaglio. Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s 1816 Berlin Production German painter Karl Friedrich Schinkel was so blown away by “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog,” the 1818 masterpiece of German romantic painting by Caspar David Friedrich, he gave up painting and turned to architecture. Several of his buildings survive in present-day Berlin. He designed 32 different theatrical productions; although he never abandoned Baroque principals of geometrical depth and architectural symmetry, his early Romantic images evoke rich moods, atmospheres, and emotions. His 1816 designs for The Magic Flute include some of the most influential images in the history of opera. The Berlin Staatsoper created a new production of The Magic Flute based on Schinkel’s designs in 1994. The Queen of the Night’s palace. The snake pursues Tamino to this location, and when the Queen enters, it’s as if the Ladies have taken Tamino through the rocky arch and the building to where the star-drop beckons at the back. Design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. The Queen of the Night sends Tamino on his quest. The Queen made a deus ex machina entrance on her little crescent moon, then flew away while the audience was applauding her wild coloratura. Design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Papageno comes upon Pamina in this part of Sarastro’s compound, and it’s here the two sing their charming duet, “Bei Männern.” Her captivity is obviously not TOO oppressive, and the natural area beckoning upstage indicates the optimism of these young people. Design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Meanwhile, the Three Spirits guide Tamino to this location, the entrance to the temples of Labor, Wisdom, and Art, where he encounters the Speaker. Design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. The Queen of the Night sings “Der Hölle Rache” to Pamina in this evocative location, “Sarastro’s Garden,” which looks like it might do double-duty as set for Aida’s Nile Scene. Design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. “Man! You have earned an eternity of wandering through gloomy caves.” The hapless Papageno sings “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen” here, in Sarastro’s spooky mausoleum. Mozart and Schikaneder took the idea that unsuccessful candidates for initation spend the rest of their unenlightened lives in subterranean captivity from Abbé Terrason’s 1731 novel Sethos, Life of an Egyptian King. Design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. The Trials by Fire and Water. In Schinkel’s version Tamino and Pamina descend a long staircase on their way to the final rituals. Design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Sarastro’s Sun Temple. The opera concludes in an impressively monumental court. Couldn’t you use this set for an opera about the Conquistadores taking down the Aztecs...or one about the drowning of Atlantis? Design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Simon Quaglio’s 1818 Munich Production Magic Flute designs by Simon, son of the Joseph Quaglio who created the 1793 Munich production, show the influence of Schinkel’s production from up north. (The Quaglios were still active in Munich when Ludwig II gave the world premieres of Wagner’s Das Rheingold and Die Walküre in the late 1860s, very much against the composer’s wishes and aesthetic taste.) By now, designs for The Magic Flute start to reflect both the majesty and the mystery of this remarkable opera. The Queen of the Night. Could Goya have created a more haunting or Romantic image? The imaginative architecture of Sarastro’s temple here is perhaps more Indian than Egyptian... ...but Quaglio’s production also reflected the recent discoveries of the first Egyptologists. The Palm Grove. Quaglio’s response to Schinkel’s river-and-sphinx set is daringly Romantic in its use of landscape. Sarastro’s Sun Temple features a starry blue band covered with Zodiacal signs arching across the heavens. Schinkel’s famous dome of stars for the Queen of the Night is starting to influence other theatrical scenery. In addition to influencing the visual arts, The Magic Flute pointed the way forward to composers and writers. Goethe tried to write a sequel, although it was never completed. A more substantial literary response came from that rabid Mozart fan E.T.A. Hoffmann, whose novella The Golden Pot is not only his masterpiece, and one of the seminal texts of the Romantic movement, it’s obviously written entirely in response to The Magic Flute.

The Magic Flute is one of the operas with tunes so catchy and recognizable, even those who have never seen a performance of it have probably heard its music. Whether it’s the overture played as background music at the mall on an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or a music box on an episode of House bringing Papageno’s "Das klinget so herrlich" front and center, The Magic Flute is definitely in the pop culture landscape. In 1995, Disney released Operation Dumbo Drop, a (family-friendly) movie starring Danny Glover, Ray Liotta, and Denis Leary about an Army mission to deliver an elephant to a village during the Vietnam War. The over-the-top plot also features a moment in which one character sings along, horribly, to the Queen of the Night’s famous aria, “Der Hölle Rache”: "Der Hölle Rache" was also discussed in a 2009 episode of the CW’s popular Gossip Girl TV series, during the second season episode “You’ve Got Yale!” in which the main characters attend a performance of The Magic Flute. Opera is mentioned throughout the episode, and this short video features a few notable references (embedding is disabled, but clicking the photo will take you to YouTube to watch): In these clips, the anonymous Gossip Girl compares the drama of the main characters to Flute; Dan and Nate talk about going to the opera, and make a bonus reference to The Ring; and Eric breaks down Magic Flute to opera newbie Rufus, while they listen to "Der Hölle Rache." By the way, we definitely disagree with Eric’s assertion that Flute is "opera for amateurs." While it's a great introduction to those unfamiliar with opera, there's something for everyone in this Mozart masterpiece. More recently in film, that same aria was included in the soundtrack for Eat Pray Love, released last year and starring Julia Roberts. It was an interesting choice of music, considering the context: this very German aria is played to highlight the joy Roberts' character is experiencing while traveling through Italy and savoring Italian cuisine. See the clip below. Flute's music has also been in numerous commercials, for everything from cars to macaroni and cheese. Papageno might enjoy Red Bull based on its "Red Bull gives you wings" slogan, but we bet he wasn’t so pleased with the outcome of this clever commercial for the energy drink, featuring Papageno’s entrance aria “Der Vogelfänger Bin Ich Ja” (“I’m a bird catcher”): In 2006, Kenneth Branagh made a film adaptation of The Magic Flute that set the story during World War I, with the German libretto translated to English by Stephen Fry, and music conducted by James Conlon. Branagh's film is the first time The Magic Flute was made specifically for the big screen (in 1975, Ingmar Bergman created a wonderful made-for-TV version). Branagh's Magic Flute screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, but has been largely overlooked since its release, and there doesn't appear to be a U.S. edition of the DVD yet. For now, you can watch bits and pieces online, including the duet between Papageno and Papagena. Here's how Branagh filmed the overture: It's not just The Magic Flute's music that has been referenced in film and TV over the years. Several movies, for example, have featured plot lines involving magical flutes--like the 1976 animated film The Smurfs and the Magic Flute. Set in the Middle Ages, the movie focuses on a court jester who discovers a magic flute that, when played, makes the townspeople dance uncontrollably. Sounds innocent enough--until a thief snatches away the flute and uses its powers to rob people of their gold. It's not quite the same adventure as in Mozart's opera, but it's a magic flute nonetheless! The entire movie is available for viewing on YouTube. Have you noticed nods toward Flute that we haven't yet mentioned? We'd love to know, so please share them in the comments!

Costume design by Oliver Messel for the Queen of Night in Mozart's opera The Magic Flute, Glyndebourne 1956.

Baritone Mark Walters as Papageno in The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte) www.markwaltersbaritone.com