Kentridge’s flute: Quite a journey

William Kentridge’s production of The Magic Flute finally premiered in South Africa in September, after an extensive international tour.

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William Kentridge’s production of The Magic Flute finally premiered in South Africa in September, after an extensive international tour that started in 2005. The sold-out performances were the culmination of a remarkable artistic journey that included the creation of the opera, an outpouring of drawings and prints on themes related to the production, and the completion of the seminal Black Box/Chambre Noire, unveiled in Berlin in 2006 before moving to the Johannesburg Art Gallery.

Chronicling this entire process, David Krut Publishing and William Kentridge have collaborated to publish William Kentridge Flute. The book includes commentary by Kentridge; an interview with the artist; essays by Bronwyn Law-Viljoen, Stéphane Roussel and Kate McCrickard; full-colour photographs of the productions; pages from Kentridge’s preparatory notebooks; and images of the many prints and drawings executed in the several years while Kentridge was working on these two productions.