Yes, that's exactly it. So much scope for the imagination. Something to grapple with.

This production didn't really attempt to address the patriarchal elements (or if they did, I missed it in my impending haze). I kept wondering about points of entry that would let you mitigate against all the declarations of misogyny -- like the fact that it requires both of the lovers, as a team, to get through the final trials.

And I mean, the Queen of the Night is so much more magnificent than everyone else that Sarastro's declarations never seem likely to quash her much.

There's some kind of unresolved dialectic there, yeah? Two powers that would be stronger together rather than in opposition. Not that I am super excited about binary gender systems.

Actually, I've just remembered that it (briefly) made me want to write an opera with characters approaching gender from all sorts of different angles (& diverging from it entirely). Briefly, because one should probably have some kind of musical or theatrical talent to write an opera.

Thanks for the good wishes -- the lake was excellent medicine.

It only now occurs to me that I should have called this post "The Magic Flu".