By Paul Levy [WSJ, 25 March 2011]
LONDON—Is it possible to get to the essence of Mozart and his librettist Emanuel Schikaneder’s opera “Die Zauberflˆte”? Peter Brook’s bare-boards adaptation, “A Magic Flute,” at the Barbican, does just that; it strips away the Masonic lore, the sets—reduced to a forest of freestanding flexible poles—and even the orchestra.