One of the most delightful productions in London right now is Simon McBurney’s take on The Magic Flute at the English National Opera, in collaboration with the theatre company, Complicité.

One of the most delightful productions in London right now is Simon McBurney’s take on The Magic Flute at the English National Opera, in collaboration with the theatre company, Complicité. It seems to capture some of the music hall atmosphere of the theatre for which Mozart actually wrote this preposterous piece. In the programme, there’s a fine essay by the mathematician Marcus du Sautoy on the way Mozart used numbers in the opera for their symbolic value, overt and covert.

For, as most of us know, Freemasonry and its rituals and values and numbers is the unacknowledged subject of the opera, with Tamino’s quest for Truth and Love being a take on the masonic project. And in this production the Central Committee that decides things in Sarastro’s Temple really is like a board meeting; a gathering of self-regarding men in suits.

It reminds me of the one time I went to a Masonic temple, the central one in Covent Garden when, for the first time the Freemasons opened up their centre for outsiders and gave guided tours. It was, I may say, a disappointment. Having been fascinated by Freemasonry precisely because it was forbidden to Catholics on the basis that you must swear obedience to an unknown authority, I was rather looking forward to scenes of arcane ritual and mysterious symbolism. In fact, the centre of the place, known as the Boardroom, looked exactly like it said, a boardroom, or perhaps a 1930s-style cinema, only with an organ.

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