Recommendation:

The Met's current production of The Magic Flute. The music is, of course, wonderful, but the costumes and choreography were almost as good. (which is saying a lot!) I haven't been so delighted by visual humor since, oh, I guess since I saw Miyazaki's Spirited Away a few months ago. Many scenes had a quality of sublime silliness, as if to say: "This is obvious," and then, "This is so obvious we can play with it." For example, Sarastro's men wear triangles, circles, and squares to signify their embodiment of reason.
My favorite moments were of Papageno eating: he tries to catch huge fruits, drumsticks, dumplings, etc, which are hovering in the air above him (a bit like Tantalus), and of Papageno singing "Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen": a bevy of ballerinas with goose necks and heads ("ein sanftes Täubchen") do a careful, mysterious, ridiculous, awkwardly graceful dance around him. Papageno is almost a bird himself, but a ruffled, garrulous, earthy kind of bird. These stylized Papagenas of his imagination are smooth, white, silent, dainty — a different species from Papageno. Luckily the real Papagena is just as comical and colorful as Papageno.