...this is a total experience, perfectly tailored for private listening. René Jacobs thinks of it as a Hörspiel: it's a play to be heard - I don't know a recorded Zauberflöte more thrillingly alive with fantasy, profoundly musical imagination, real magic, and real fun too.

With a generally youthful cast boasting some lovely voices, the music is equally captivating. Jacobs is all about excitement and making the most of orchestral detail...Full of surprises, Jacobs’s account is a real game-changer: we will never listen to this multi-faceted masterpiece in the same way again.

There's much to savour in the individual performances here, with often-sublime singing.

...fresh, lively, quick-witted – and characteristically full of liberties...The solo singing is impeccably schooled and dramatically believable...Daniel Schmutzhard makes the most of his Viennese Papageno. Daniel Behle is the thoughtful Tamino, Marlis Petersen a virginal Pamina.

As ever, Jacobs favours lively speeds, light articulation and pungent, colourful textures...I suspect I shall reach for this new recording as often as any, for its bubbling, crackling theatricality and an eager, yet unforced, sense of fun that never short-changes the opera's central message of human enlightenment.

Some of his tempi and abrupt gear changes will disturb purist Mozartians, but his youthful cast gives huge pleasure: Marlis Petersen’s radiant Pamina, Daniel Behle’s lyrical, aristocratic Tamino and Daniel Schmutzhard’s garrulous Papageno are among the finest sung on disc, and Anna-Kristiina Kappola’s steely-toned Queen of the Night doesn’t miss a stitch in her coloratura runs.

The star is tenor Daniel Behle, whose Tamino is the finest on disc since Fritz Wunderlich. Jacobs opts on occasion for exaggerated speeds, whether fast or slow. The playing is excellent.

The principal singers inhabit their roles as persuasively as possible for such an absurdly mythopoeic fairytale, with Daniel Behle a noble Tamino and baritone Daniel Schmutzhard particularly effective as Papageno.

From the violently arresting opening chords of the overture, it is clear this Die Zauberflöte is not going to be routine...but to anyone who feels that they know the opera inside out, it’s an exhilarating wake-up call...the entire cast sings with meticulous musicality, and the RIAS Chamber Choir and Akademie für Alte Musik could hardly be bettered.