Taymor Triumphs

From the people who brought you Broadway's "The Lion King" now comes Mozart!

That might be the ad line for the current Metropolitan Opera production of The Magic Flute, featuring costumes and direction by Julie Taymor, the woman behind the Disney stage-show. But this isn't a put-down. Taymor's work on behalf of the kid from Salzburg is every bit as brilliant as her labors for the House of Mouse.

The key to this Met production, though, isn't spectacle. The Met's old Magic Flute, designed by painter David Hockney, had a surfeit of that. What that production lacked was drama and movement. Taymor provides this. This isn't to say that she doesn't utilize her signature device, giant puppets. She does. But above and beyond that, the production has subtle and intricate blocking and a punched-up text-along with artful direction of the performers-to make its scenes either genuinely funny or real and affecting in a way that few productions of this opera are.

On the night I attended, the voices in the cast were unexceptional, but the audience reaction was anything but.

Reportedly, this Flute will also play in the fall in an abbreviated version for children. Kids will love its magic tricks and its huge moving plexiglass sets. Parents will enjoy the intimate staging of the love duets. Either way, with its mix of stage marvels and tender scenes, it's a delight.