The Magic Flute, London Coliseum

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's The Magic Flute remains the most popular opera ever written and the perfect one to introduce the genre to the non-initiated. The English National Opera is committed to create new audiences for Opera through English language performances. Beware, purists will be shocked! However, this event would be rather ordinary if Complicite company director Simon McBurney was not running the show.

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Simon McBurney is one of the most exciting British directors of his generation. An associated artist of the Festival d’Avignon 2012, he amazed everyone with his version of Bulgakov’s Master and the Margarita in the Palais des Papes last summer. As an introduction to the work he intends to do on The Magic Flute, he said: “I am staging The Magic Flute with as much left to the imagination as possible”. Leading us to believe we can expect a bare stage with lots of highly inventive physicality.

Mark Wigglesworth, the new artistic director of the ENO, will conduct. He is known for his luminous work on Wagner's Parsifal, and an interest in programming lesser known works alongside the classics. Gareth Fry, currently one of Britain’s most inventive sound designers, and Michael Levine, a Canadian opera designer of international reputation, are also part of the team. Ever-rising lyric soprano and London favourite Lucy Crowe will play Pamina, opposite Allan Clayton, whose skilful psychological readings and command of language is making him one to watch. Dramatic soprano Ambur Braid will be an uncharacteristically youthful Queen of the Night.

We would strongly recommend you book a good seat, preferably in the stalls, to best follow Prince Tamino’s search of love in this unique version of Mozart's final operatic masterpiece. Based on the reception afforded its initial run, this will be a theatrical, profound and memorable, an exciting show from a trailblazing director.