Stockholm's Drottningholm Theater is a marvel: a still-working theater with 18th-century stage machinery. Bergman takes full advantage of both the theater’s wonders and Mozart's music in his staging of the opera The Magic Flute (performed here in Swedish) and in turn, his filming of that staging. The tale of young lovers tested is set against Bergman's attention to the goings-on in the wings during the performance, and in the audience. The cast features a young Håkan Hagegård, all but stealing the show as Papageno, the comic bird catcher.