There is undeniable magic in the Metropolitan Opera’s family-friendly version of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute”: in its wildly imaginative, puppet-filled staging by Julie Taymor; in its fairy tale of a knight on a quest to win the woman of his dreams while attaining enlightenment; in its snappy and colloquial English adaptation by J.D. McClatchy.

And there was even some extra magic added when the production — featuring a score trimmed to 85 intermission-free minutes — returned to the house on Sunday: the brilliant singing of a fine cast of youthful performers. Judging by the enthusiastic ovations that followed every aria, the audience was charmed.

Indeed, when the soprano Kathryn Lewek, as the Queen of the Night, sang her character’s dazzling and demonic aria, many people started clapping halfway through, right after she dispatched the famous music’s bursts of coloratura passagework with eerie ease and enormous sound. Yes, she was quite a sight in her fantastical costume, a mothlike figure with multiple flapping wings. But it was her singing that had some children near me sitting up in their seats and breaking into applause.

The conductor Lothar Koenigs, working with an abridgment of the score that loses the overture and entire numbers, drew elegance and breadth from the Met orchestra and chorus. You get the feeling this cast would be no less pleasing in a performance of the full, German-language version of the opera.