“The Magic Flute”: Florian Sigl’s journey from advertising to the cinema – Munich

It’s only a few meters from Corneliusstrasse to Gärtnerplatz, but it takes many years to get from the shoe shop to the theater: when Florian Sigl released his film “The Magic Flute – The Legacy of the Magic Flute” in Munich last week Gärtnerplatztheater presented, he had also completed this path. The director’s parents have been selling espadrilles on Corneliusstrasse for 30 years, and he was often in the shop as a child. But he himself dreamed of a career as a violinist. So he went to the Richard Strauss Conservatory, played the bassoon and studied with Sergiu Celibidache. Since life often turns out differently than planned, he became a recruiter. After many years, it was now back to Gärtnerplatz, where the German premiere of his debut film instead of. His parents were in the audience, the star director Roland Emmerich was next to him on the stage.

In his mid-forties, he’s never been to film school, he’s more of a learning-by-doing type. “Black Sheep” read the cap he wore to the premiere. So far he has also been a black sheep in the German film industry – people like to keep to themselves there. Outsiders like him don’t actually stage an international cinema production as their first film, nor are they given a budget in the tens of millions and a cast made up of young Britons, an Oscar winner from America and a number of world opera stars.

But the native of Munich is proof that all of this is possible: his debut is a mix of Mozart’s “Magic Flute”, fantasy adventure with a computer-animated giant snake and a coming-of-age story that is supposed to be reminiscent of “Harry Potter”. . This is idiosyncratic in the best sense of the word, and not everyone will like it either. The young fantasy audience is likely to be irritated by the many arias, opera lovers could be bothered by the background story, which has little to do with Mozart and a lot with adolescent trials and tribulations at a Salzburg boarding school. But the makers believe in the film’s cross-generational appeal, and it will be released in cinemas nationwide this week.

Executive Producer Roland Emmerich praised the film on premiere night

“The film should make you want to see Mozart’s opera,” says Sigl on the night of the premiere, “but it can never be a substitute for a live performance.” It took a few years for the project to materialize, for everyone to be convinced and for all partners to be on board. The man with the “Black Sheep” cap sold well, and he did so at the premiere. Both the young Berlin producer Christopher Zwickler (who had the idea for the film) and the Mozarteum Salzburg or Executive Producer Roland Emmerich found Sigl’s concept of the opera as a family-friendly fantasy film convincing. On the evening of the premiere, Emmerich said several times how “sweet” he found the film and how important it is today to build on well-known brands or stories. “The Magic Flute” is known all over the world: “We sold the film almost everywhere.”

This may also be due to classical stars like Sabine DeVieilhe or Rolando Villazón, who perform in many countries. F. Murray Abraham is also known worldwide: the American played the sinister Salieri in the hit movie “Amadeus” and won an Oscar for it, in “The Magic Flute” he played the head of the boarding school. After “Amadeus” he wanted to be a musician himself, claims Sigl. As a child he played the violin “like a man possessed”, and as a teenager he studied the bassoon at the Richard Strauss Conservatory. He wanted to study conducting with Sergiu Celibidache, but he was supposed to get to know him personally as he was doing community service at the Klinikum Rechts der Isar. The conductor was there with heart problems, Sigl looked after him – and revealed his career aspirations. “He asked me if I could absolutely hear,” he says, but he said no. “Then he told me in no uncertain terms that I had no chance.” In his early twenties, Florian Sigl gave up his dream of becoming a musician.

Instead, he hosted a children’s television show for a while and got a job at a commercial production company. It is a steep career that he has had in advertising, as a director of commercials for cars or insurance companies, as managing director of an advertising film company, as a lecturer at the Baden-Württemberg Film Academy. It could have gone on like this, but that wasn’t enough for Sigl. He became a father, started a family and moved in with his wife’s family in Trier. He stopped advertising a few years ago, he says. Now he wants to go back to Munich with his family and tell great stories. Best in the cinema. Sounds megalomaniac? Maybe. But this black sheep of the film industry can be trusted.