Sacramento State is invited to see Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” a popular opera that entails “The Queen of the Night” representing evilness deceiving her daughter Pamina to kill Sarastro, a high priest who represents righteousness.

The opera will be 8 p.m Friday and 3 p.m. Sunday in the Opera Theatre in Shasta Hall.

Tickets are $18 for general admission and $12 for students and senior.

The Magic Flute was the last opera piece Mozart composed in Vienna in 1791.

Mozart meant for the opera to be a Singspiel, an opera with sung and spoken dialogue delivered in the German language.

Michael Sokol, director of the opera, said the music department chose “The Magic Flute” to perform because this piece was one of Mozart’s most incredible pieces of music.

“Mozart’s work captures the essence of music and theater because he is very good at honing in on emotion and theatrical movement,” said Sokol.

Pete Nowlen, choreographer of the opera, said the audience will be blown away by the “22-piece orchestra that includes strings, basses and bells.”

In “The Magic Flute,” Tamino, an Egyptian Prince, is saved by The Queen of the Night’s servants, “the three ladies,” servants to the queen.

The Queen of the Night manipulates the prince into thinking her enemy, Sarastro, the High Priest of Isis and Osiris, is an evil man because he captured her daughter Pamina.

The three ladies provide Tamino and the bird catcher, Papageno, with a magic flute that protects them with good spirits on their journey to harm Sarastro.

Tamino was informed by the high priest that the queen was deceiving him to think Sarastro was evil.

The queen failed at sending Tamino to harm Sarastro and decides Pamina would be able to kill the priest instead.

The three ladies, Monostatos, the slave of Sarastro, and the Queen of the Night come together to break into Tamino’s castle but are taken down.

Tamino later falls in love with Pamina and are protected by good spirits.

Sokol said the performance will expose Mozart’s idea of good and evil by including the representing “Queen of the Night” as the evil character and Sarasto as the good person.

He said the Queen will reside in Alaska and Sarastro in Hawaii to represent areas familiar to people.

Frances Swiecki-Bernhardt, sophomore vocal performance major, said she is looking forward to the conflict that goes on between Sarastro and the Queen of the Night.

“The Queen of the Night wants Pamina to kill Sarastro and if she doesn’t, the “Queen of the Night” will kill her instead,” she said.

Sokol said the difference between the original version and Sac State’s version is that Sac State has the Queen of the Night reconciling with Sarastro, the enemy, by forgiving one another.

Nowlen said the opera is a traditional performance but will take a modern approach in the set and costume design to be relatable to contemporary audiences.

“Some characters will wear furry clothes and perform funny choreography,” he said.

Nowlen suggests people attend the performance because students from the music department will amaze the campus community with their vocal and choreographic talent.

“This opera performance will be high quality,” he said. “This will be an opportunity for people to see students do something impressive – opera students memorizing lines to sing in German for a two hour and a half production,” he said.

Swiecki-Bernhardt said the subtitles help her follow the music well because it translates the lyrics from the German language to English so she can understand them.

“The supertitles are helpful because I know what the singers are saying,” she said. “Without the supertitles, I wouldn’t enjoy the performance that much.”

Andrew Nickell, senior music major, said he is anxious about performing in “The Magic Flute” because the opera is more advanced than the usual operas in which he has performed.

“The Magic Flute demands flawless coordination of the voice to be able to really pull off the lyricism and sing the full range of the music,” he said.

Swiecki-Bernhardt said people should come see an opera performance because it is similar to a movie.

“Not a lot of people appreciate opera because it is inaccessible to popular culture but in reality it’s like a big movie,” she said.

John Saelee can be reached at [email protected]