Anyone looking for tangible Chinese imagery here will have to wait until the opening of Act II in Sarastro’s lair; even then Gao Guangjian’s set design indiscriminately blurs several dynasties. Before that, requisite Egyptian motifs seem routed through south-east Asia, guided by a good bit of blacklight puppetry.

In rendering its mythical atmosphere, Opera Hong Kong’s new Magic Flute (a co-production with China’s National Centre for the Performing Arts and the Norwegian State Opera) takes us both everywhere and nowhere, with Paul Edwards’s costumes similarly juxtaposing familiar elements in almost unearthly combinations. “It’s like watching the aliens on Star Trek,” my companion gasped at one point. Mozart as designed by Starfleet.

Director Paul Curran plays with our expectations, but his intentions aren’t always clear. Why blur the visual distinctions between Prince Tamino and his working-class buddy Papageno, for example, while starkly contrasting the earthily plumed Papagena with the royal Pamina (dressed at one point rather like a Qin dynasty Princess Leia)? On the other hand, soprano Ekaterina Lekhina’s entrance as the Queen of the Night, suspended over the stage like a glittering bat, is both effective and inspired.

Thursday’s performance was a bit more grounded, conventionally sung in German with dialogue spoken in English, though it too had some rocky moments. Conductor Jari Hämäläinen coaxed beautifully lyrical lines from the Hong Kong Philharmonic, keeping the action flowing smoothly on stage as long as the music was playing. but when it stopped, the cast was on its own.

The Chinese supertitles (my literate companion pointed out) teetered awkwardly between formal and vernacular language, which was emblematic of the unease on stage. Switching between both languages and performance styles, performers initially suffered “translation lags” that jarred the theatrical immediacy of the spoken text.

Soprano Ying Huang, a veteran Pamina, may no longer have the vocal creaminess she once brought to the role, but she did consistently galvanise the dramatic level of her fellow cast members – particularly Bruce Sledge’s generally wooden Prince. Baritone Paul Armin Edelmann’s Papageno became appropriately more animated after meeting soprano Joyce Wong’s spirited Papagena.

At the opening of Act II, bass Mika Kares’s imposing Sarastro marked a turning point where the cast finally found its footing. Others have commented that the contrasting halves of The Magic Flute are barely the same opera, but in this case it was hard to believe these were the same performers as in the first act.

At Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts, November 20-23