It is night time, and a young girl is swept away by the power of her imagination into a world where nothing is as it first appears…
Here she finds Tamino, a handsome prince who is also lost in this strange land, and is being pursued by a monstrous serpent. Three mysterious women appear, who are servants of the Queen of the Night, and slay the monster. Afterwards, they give Tamino a portrait of the Queen’s daughter, Pamina, and he falls instantly in love, vowing to rescue her from the evil Sarastro, Priest of the Sun, in whose faraway Temple she has been imprisoned. The three women give Tamino a magic flute to help in his quest and with the aid of a bird-catcher, Papageno, Tamino journeys to Sarastro’s temple and meets Pamina for the first time.