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Adaptation Enactment and Ingmar Bergman's Magic Flute

Dean Duncan

F or all of its manifold musical glories, The Magic Flute was and is a theatrical work, meant for production and performance, and that repeatedly. As such, I will be concentrating on the opera's theatrical and cinematic elements. This article treats Ingmar Bergman's felicitous 1975 film adaptation of the opera. Those inclined canfind much to complain about in Bergman's cinematic version of Mozart's opera, but I would like to suggest that, with sympathy and openness, this complaining could give way to approval and great gratitude. In this Magic Flute, we have an interpretation worthy of its source, which is saying a great deal.

Despite its popularity,film remains suspect for some critics, especially when it goes poaching in the preserves of "legitimate" art. There are reasons for this guardedness. Since watching appears to be easier than reading, and sincefilm preserves performances that in the theater remain only in memory, cinema has in many ways become the default medium, thefinal destination to which texts from all media tend. One unfortunate result, inextricably linked to the mega corporate nature of contemporary media production, is that, instead of a healthy conversation between multiple versions of a work, there is a search for the definitive take. Disney's excellent 1940 version of Pinocchio, for example, leaves the electrifying original unread and leaves the contradictory and fascinating Benigni adaptation ( 2002 ) unseen and even unconsidered; and the whole disheartening situation leaves us prescriptive, proscriptive, and grumpy about the stories and enactments that should make us happy.

Of course, any production, theatrical or cinematic, that tries to incorporate every nuance and possibility found in the source or uncovered by a comprehensive reading would almost certainly be unbearably busy, unfocused, and endless. A production must select out of an abundance of possibilities a certain few actualities. The regretting of roads not taken, especially when the actual choice is proven to be a good one, is profitless.

All productions are adaptations, and adaptations are often discussed, as Seymour Chatman has suggested, by using a lover's vocabulary: one is faithful; another betrays. ¡ These may be inflated terms, as this is no marriage; the stakes are not as high-and, in the realm of story, dalliance may actually be helpful and healthy. It may be more accurate to say that in adaptation there is a range of possibility, a spectrum from attempted congruence to indulged liberality. As for hierarchy or value, I would posit that any kind of adaptation, in the abstract, is neutral. The good and ill are in the work, the understanding, and the application.

In the same way, the page, the stage, and the screen are all completely valid media for sharing stories. They are also markedly and necessarily distinct from one another. When adaptations occur, there may be continuities from the source, but there must also be changes. These changes must take into account the properties specific to the medium being utilized. Bergman's adaptation partly succeeds through a playful self-consciousness about crossing the boundaries between media. He makes of this a game with which we as audience become complicit participants. Paradoxically, through a dogged artificiality, by continually unveiling the mechanisms of representation, Bergman earns our interest and honors his source. This dynamic carries throughout thefilm but is apparent from thefirst act, where I will concentrate my remarks.