The Magic Flute chorus for several numbers (notably the finales of each act). Mozart also called for a "" (instrument of steel) to perform Papageno's magic bells; an instrument which has since been lost to history, though modern day scholars believe it to be a keyed glockenspiel, which is usually substituted with a celesta in modern-day performances. Charles Rosen has remarked on the character of Mozart's orchestration: "Die Zauberflöte" has the greatest variety of orchestral color that the eighteenth century was to know; the very lavishness, however, is paradoxically also an economy as each effect is a concentrated one, each one—Papageno's whistle, the
Opera Omaha and a libretto by Elkhanah Pulitzer. Noted Japanese ceramic artist Jun Kaneko has collaborated with Opera Omaha on two productions, a 2006 production of Madama Butterfly and a 2013 co-production with the San Francisco Opera and the Washington National Opera of The Magic Flute. Kaneko, born in 1942 in Nagoya, Japan, came to the United States in 1963 and has lived in Omaha, Nebraska since 1990, where he established his studio. In 2008, Kaneko designed a production of Fidelio for the Opera Company of Philadelphia. Kaneko was a founder of Omaha's Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, a residency program that