The Magic Flute outside Vienna (21 September 1792) in Lemberg, then in Prague. It then made "triumphal progress through Germany's opera houses great and small", and with the early 19th century spread to essentially all the countries of Europe—and eventually, everywhere in the world—where opera is cultivated. As Branscombe documents, the earlier performances were often of highly altered, sometimes even mutilated, versions of the opera (see "Ludwig Wenzel Lachnith"). Productions of the past century have tended to be more faithful to Mozart's music, though faithful rendering of Mozart and Schikaneder's original (quite explicit) stage directions and dramatic vision continues to be rare; with
Welsh National Opera with the company's musical director James Lockhart, Geliot is credited by "The Times" with introducing new young singers and "directing a host of groundbreaking productions" before leaving in 1978. The critic Rodney Milnes wrote in 1975 about WNO's productions: In 1973 Geliot's WNO staging of Britten's "Billy Budd" with Allen in the title role was presented on a Swiss tour, and two years later it was given in Barcelona. The company returned to London with its participation in the Amoco Festival of Opera at the Dominion Theatre in 1979, presenting "The Makropoulos Case", "The Magic Flute", "Ernani", "Madame Butterfly", and