It's a wholly unfussy production, with the bloom still on it. The film was shown at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival, but was not entered into the main competition. The theatrical release made profits sufficient to blunt earlier criticism that Swedish Radio had devoted too much of its funds to a single large project. A substantial body of critical scholarship ultimately arose centered on the film. Of the singers, Håkan Hagegård went on to a prominent international career in opera and recitals. The film was reviewed from a musical perspective by Richard Evidon, who paid Bergman the compliment of praising the film as a realization of Mozart's own vision (cf. Kael's comment above on the "bewilderment" of previous directors): "Only Ingmar Bergman could have made this "Magic Flute"; but part of his achievement is in letting us forget the director's hand as we watch and are drawn closer to Mozart's sublime work." Following re-mastering by the Swedish Film Institute, a blu-ray edition was published by the BFI in 2018; the "Opera" reviewer noted the "pin-sharp visuals and dynamic sound, highlighting the spatial care with which Bergman matches music to word and image". The restoration was coupled with "In Mozart's Footsteps" (Dunn, 1938), the animation "Papageno" (Reiniger, 1935), and "On Such a Night" (Asquith, 1955).