AllMovie

Rutger Hauer and Warren Christie co-star in this innovative film opera from Anne of Green Gables helmer Kevin Sullivan, which represents a very loose reinterpretation of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's seminal 1791 singspiel Die Zauberflote. Christie stars as Tom Henderson, an operatic chanteur who is cast as the lead in a production of Die Zauberflote, despite personal misgivings about his ability to live up to that assignment. His imagination runs amok and he soon begins to fantasize about the opera and its possibilities, and the fantasies are played out elaborately onscreen. Meanwhile, Tom develops a romantic obsession with the production's second-billed, a Russian virtuoso named Masha who has fallen prey to the isolating maltreatment of her cruel manager, Dr. Nagel (Hagel); the events surrounding the production thus parallel those of Mozart's original narrative. Sullivan peppers the screen with musically-oriented production numbers throughout the film.