AROUND THE MAGIC FLUTE

WITH CLÉMENT COGITORE AND ANTOINE LILTI

Moderator Timothée Picard, dramaturge and artistic advisor at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence
Languages In French and English
Video available for replay until Wednesday, June 30, 2027
Photo © Kenza Wadimoff / DR

Sarastro’s final victory over the Queen of the Night appears to express the hope of an imminent triumph of reason, knowledge and justice over obscurantism and superstition, a reading that has traditionally made The Magic Flute an opera of the Enlightenment. Yet what blind spots are inevitably contained within every utopian vision, whether in the West of yesterday or today? What shadow does this light itself cast?

With Clément Cogitore (stage director of the 2026 production of The Magic Flute) and Antoine Lilti (historian, professor at the Collège de France and specialist in the legacy of the Age of Enlightenment)