The New Yorker, Kael wrote: Ingmar Bergman's film version of The Magic Flute is a blissful present, a model of how opera can be filmed. Bergman must have reached a new, serene assurance to have tackled this sensuous, luxuriant opera that has bewildered so many stage directors, and to have brought it off so unaffectedly. It's a wholly unfussy production, with the bloom still on it. The film was shown at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival, but was not entered into the main competition. It won a special award at National Society of Film Critics Awards. Film critic Roger Ebert ranked the film 3rd in his 10 Best Films of 1975 list. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, The Magic Flute has an approval rating of 92% based on 25 reviews, with an average score of 8.00/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Fleet and joyous, Ingmar Bergman's filmed staging of Mozart's The Magic Flute captures the opera's mirth and satire with Scandinavian flair." The theatrical release made profits sufficient to blunt earlier criticism that Swedish Radio had devoted too much of its funds to a single large project. A substantial body of critical scholarship ultimately arose centered on the film. Of the singers, Håkan Hagegård went on to a prominent international career in opera and recitals. The film was reviewed from a musical perspective by Richard Evidon, who paid Bergman the compliment of praising the film as a realization of Mozart's own vision: "Only Ingmar Bergman could have made this Magic Flute; but part of his achievement is in letting us forget the director's hand as we watch and are drawn closer to Mozart's sublime work." The film was included in British Film Institute's list of 10 Great Opera Films in 2017. Following re-mastering by the Swedish Film Institute, a blu-ray edition was published by the BFI in 2018; the Opera reviewer noted the "pin-sharp visuals and dynamic sound, highlighting the spatial care with which Bergman matches music to word and image". The restoration was coupled with In Mozart's Footsteps (Dunn, 1938), the animation Papageno (Reiniger, 1935), and On Such a Night (Asquith, 1955). References Sources External links The Magic Flute an essay by Peter Cowie at the Criterion Collection 1975 films Films directed by Ingmar Bergman 1970s musical fantasy films 1970s romantic fantasy films Swedish fantasy films 1970s Swedish-language films Swedish musical films Films based on The Magic