19:00, Wed 26th – Sat 29th August 2009 at Rosslyn Chapel, Edinburgh
Summer Vacation

Continuing Cambridge University's 800 anniversary celebrations, Cambridge University's acclaimed Shadwell Opera present Mozart's Masonic masterpiece, The Magic Flute, a Masonic sing-spiel opera guaranteed to make you laugh, cry and ponder the mysteries of ritual, romance and music itself, as part of the 52nd Edinburgh International Fringe Festival.

Rosslyn chapel, one of Scotland’s most popular tourist attractions, has for centuries been a source of endless speculation about both the Knights Templar and Freemasonry. “The Holy Grail ‘neath ancient Rosslyn waits,” wrote Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code. The location of the dramatic finale to the book makes for a uniquely ideal setting for Mozart’s most mysterious opera, in the temple of masonry.

The cream of Cambridge's 22 famed chapel choirs have been gathered, along with some of the finest young musicians in the UK, in joining Tamino, our charming prince, and Papageno, his strange-but-lovable sidekick, as they embark on a daring, confusing and often silly quest to rescue Pamina, daughter of the powerful Queen of the Night, from the elusive Sarastro.

Follow them on their journey through a ritualistic land of music, where secrecy dominates, power is everything, and song is the battleground between good and evil.

The Magic Flute, like the Mona Lisa, is a code to be cracked. Like Rosslyn Chapel, it is saturated with Masonic symbolism. Kit Hesketh-Harvey's (Clare College, 1975) translation unlocks this elusive code for a modern generation, drawing on the opera's fairytale and comedic nature while maintaining Mozart's original, sexy, subversive spirit. Was Mozart poisoned because he exposed too many Masonic secrets in The Magic Flute?