"The set design by Ryan McGettigan artfully emphasizes director Brad Dalton’s approach to the opera as being primarily about growing into maturity. In the first act the sumptuous costumes and scenery conjure up a charming bucolic environment, where everything belongs in a fairy tale. Even the dragon was charming. The masks on the younger members of the cast and their choreography were enchanting, and the first act takes places within the frame of a storybook. But as Tamino comes to realize that what he assumes to be true cannot necessarily be taken at face value the set in the second act becomes dark; shadows move like automatons onto the stage and sit like statues, waiting to pass judgment on Tamino and Pamina. As the two characters wrestle with their trial elements in the scenery, use of mirrors, projections and lighting reflect, literally, their inner turmoil. The opera ends where it began but the characters are wiser and better equipped to inhabit the real world with all its dragons." - Heather J. Morris, Peninsula Reviews

"Opera San Jose’s latest production of The Magic Flute, which opened last weekend, is winsome. The set design, by Ryan McGettigan, involves a Rococo proscenium layered in front of a theater-in-the-round. Act I is painted in airy pastels, while much of Act II is in a darkened theater and employs neon lighting. ... The production ends prettily with the stage transformed back into the late Baroque theater of the first act. All are dressed in soft-hues. The ideals of the Enlightenment have triumphed in a satisfying manner, and the enthusiastic audience roared approval." - Charlise Tiee, San Francisco Classical Voice