Jack Wolfe stars in the modern retelling of Mozart’s famous opera, The Magic Flute.
Synopsis: From Executive Producer Roland Emmerich (Moonfall) comes a captivating film that follows a teen on two journeys: one into a prestigious boarding school to fulfill his aspirations as a singer, and another into a parallel world filled with fantasy and adventure. Tim (Jack Wolfe, Shadow And Bone) has been dreaming his whole life about attending Mozart All Boys Music School, but already his first days there confront him with a hostile headmaster (F. Murray Abraham, The White Lotus), the stresses of a first love, and serious doubts about the authenticity of his singing voice. When he discovers a mystical gateway in the school’s library, he is pulled into the fantastic cosmos of Mozart’s opera, The Magic Flute, where imagination has no limits and the Queen of the Night (Sabine Devieilhe) reigns.
Check out our interview with Jack!
The Magic Flute marks your film debut. That’s so exciting! How does it feel now that it’s complete and audiences are getting to see it?
Jack: Thank you! It feels so, so exciting. It was such a special project to film, so I’m so glad people are getting to see it!
Can you tell me a bit about the film and what attracted you to the script?
Jack: I think ultimately it is a real tribute to opera and fantasy. Our film adapts Mozart’s The Magic Flute, but also features a coming of age story. Meeting Florian, the director, was inspiring from the beginning- he has such a passion for music and I really admired what he set out to do with the film.
I know this is based on the Mozart opera, The Magic Flute, but can you explain what that means, especially for those who aren’t familiar with the original opera?
Jack: Absolutely! In our film, a teenager facing a lot of hardships (grief after losing his father, meeting his first love, starting a new school) finds himself falling into the world of the opera, literally. He must face the challenges characters of the opera face alongside them and sing alongside them too. His experiences in the world of the opera teach him things that he needs in real life, whilst also allowing him to escape for a couple of hours (just as the genre can do for people in real life). It is also his fathers favourite opera, so it is also a way to connect with him again.
For those who don’t have much experience with opera, would you say this film is a good introduction to that genre?
Jack: I really really hope so. What I’d ultimately like this film to achieve the most is to maybe inspire someone who might not have thought that Opera was accessible to them before to experience it live for themselves one day. To maybe create a new opera fan, who will one day have their favourite and least favourite productions, who will one day support live opera and theatre themselves.
What was it like taking this opera and bringing it to the screen?
Jack: A really interesting journey! It definitely comes with challenges- there have been some fantastic opera to film adaptations before. Ours also features a “real life” component too, grounded in its own kind of (albeit slightly heightened) realism. The opera world is so incredibly heightened (as it serves being performed live in opera houses) that projecting those kind of emotions to a camera in close up could be intimidating! However, having the opportunity to explore a universe like that, and having access to the Mozarteum orchestra accompanying us, and such detail within the sets and costumes around us, made it such a fantastic experience.
Can you tell me a bit about your character?
Jack: Tim is a fairly average teenager, who has a huge relationship to music. He’s quite polite but very ambitious. He feels an intense amount of pressure to excel at his new school, to make the difficulty of leaving his mother alone worth it. He couldn’t be further from the heroic prince archetype- which is ironically the character he finds himself having to inhabit when he enters the magic world where he plays the role of Prince Tamino.
What was the audition process like?
Jack: It feels so long ago! Like so many projects, this had lots of different iterations and identities over some years, but my initial audition was focused on singing.
How did you prepare for this role? Was your process different from how you’ve prepared for your stage roles?
Jack: There were so many aspects of this project that felt so new to me! It was my first feature film experience and my first time shooting in a studio like that. Obviously there was a large amount of training involving singing too- I had the help of a brilliant coach (Sam Kenyon) for that- but ultimately a lot of my preparation was getting out of my own head and out of my own way- to take the pressure away from myself. Approaching the role at first I was so aware of the love so many people have for the opera and what Mozart fans might expect from me- what I ultimately had to do was trust in Florian and the story he wanted to tell- approaching the music in a way that felt authentic to Tim, who isn’t an experienced opera singer, but instead someone who is finding the world of the opera for themselves, and finding new meanings in the text.
What was it like working with and singing alongside your castmates?
Jack: It was so brilliant, and we are so lucky within this ensemble to have some incredible singers who we could take great amounts of advice from. The ensemble contained so many different types of performer, all coming to the project from different angles and different points of view, so we were able to share with each other the whole way through.
What was your favorite part about making this film?
Jack: I touched on it a little in the previous answer, but it really was so special to have worked on this with so many performers from different disciplines. It was so many of our feature debuts, and what was actually a slight silver lining to the lack of live performance opportunities presented by the pandemic- we were all free at the time- actors from the opera, from theatre, experienced film actors and recording artists- to work together on this film that is in its fabric a tribute to a live art form.
What was the most challenging part of making this film?
Jack: Any film shot during or soon after the years around the pandemic brought so many challenges and limitations- we’re seeing so many of those films come out and be seen now, and there’s a whole other layer of impressiveness to them- we know how much extra work would have had to go into those projects at all points. There were so many parts of the team that I didn’t even get to meet whilst shooting. When we all came together for the premier, it was the best thing ever.
Is there anything you hope viewers take away from watching this film?
Jack: I already mentioned it, but aside from finding a few hours to escape into a fantasy world for a while and enjoy an almost nostalgic adventure, I really hope that even if for a second it inspires someone to think they’d enjoy seeing the opera live on stage, they take that chance and run with it.
Is there anything else you’d like to add about The Magic Flute?
Jack: I’m trying to think if there’s a funny story to share- I can tell you that if you happen to watch the German language version of the film, the text in the opera is the original and Tim’s singing voice is me!
Are you working on anything else at the moment?
Jack: Yes! I play Wylan Hendricks in the second season of “Shadow and Bone” on Netflix, which is out on the 16th March- we had the most incredible time filming that, so I’m really excited for people to see it.
Lastly, if people want to stay up to date with you and your work, where can we follow you?
Jack: I can be found on Twitter and Instagram at @jacktwolfe
