A Magic Flute for everybody: our latest international project with Shuang Zou

For our latest international project, we’re delighted to be working with Shuang Zou, Artistic Director of the Beijing Music Festival, on her version of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, which opens the Festival’s 29th edition this autumn. It’s the production’s mainland China premiere, having already played Hong Kong and Adelaide, and it arrives with a cast and creative team spanning four continents — conductor Dane Lam from State Opera South Australia, the London Philharmonic Orchestra playing the score, and cast members from Russia and the USA.

Shuang is UK trained — a graduate of the London Film School who began her career at institutions including the Royal Albert Hall, Garsington Opera and in Northern Ireland — and that gives her a rare perspective on classical music in the East and West. Her take on Mozart is contemporary, transporting The Magic Flute from Ancient Egypt to urban Hong Kong. She says:

“I chose to begin in a place that belongs to everyone: a subway station. In the constant rush of urban life, we move from one destination to another, often overlooking the people, emotions and possibilities passing beside us. I wanted the fantasy of The Magic Flute to emerge from within this familiar world—to suggest that love, wonder and transformation may already be hidden in the ordinary moments of our lives. For me, this is profoundly Mozartian. Mozart knew loneliness, hardship and the uncertainties of life, yet his music transforms them into tenderness, humour and extraordinary joy. The apparent simplicity of The Magic Flute is therefore not an escape from profundity, but a path towards it. It reminds us that awakening does not always have to come through suffering; joy, laughter, love and openness to the unknown can also lead us somewhere higher.”

“This is why Mozart reaches far beyond culture, class or classical music. His music invites everyone to dissolve boundaries, embrace uncertainty and rediscover the extraordinary within the everyday. Our Magic Flute begins underground, in the middle of ordinary life, because for me Mozart’s magic is not an escape from life—it is an awakening to it.”

We’re delighted to be working with Shuang Zou again, after working with her and director Chen Xinyi on Ein Heldenleben: Cai Lun in London, and building on previous Chinese collaborations including the National Theatre of China and Guangzhou Dramatic Arts Centre. It’s another chapter in the international work we love — following our clients and collaborators around the world, most recently across the pond to SoHo Playhouse in New York.

The Magic Flute plays the opening weekend of the Beijing Music Festival at the China National Opera House on 10 and 11 October 2026.