Director John Savournin has created a lively, accessible and stripped-down Flute for magical Wiltshire garden opera venue Iford which gives the lovers Tamino and Pamina a clear choice between the superstitious tribal culture of the Queen of the Night, and the humanist ethos of Enlightenment philosophy pioneered by the philosopher-sorcerer Sarastro. Simon Bejer‘s design takes us to the Peruvian rainforest, filling the stone cloister with luscious ferns and lianas, where lusty tribeswomen hunt unsuspecting strangers and Sarastro, bare-chested and crowned with a Mohican of turquoise parrot feathers, presides over his hooded followers in an Inca temple of enlightenment.
