“Chagall was a big music fan, Mozart in particular,” Chris Rossi, the exhibition’s curator, tells Vogue.com over the phone. “His ideas of perfection were the Bible and The Magic Flute. This must have been pure heaven for him.”

Chagall The Magic Flute Photo: Courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera Archives

That sense of delight comes across loud and clear: The costumes, divorced from the operatic setting, are beautiful, appearing, as Rich wrote nearly 50 years ago, like “Chagall paintings wrapped around people.” Among those on display are the artist’s feathery take on the bird-catchers, Papagena and Papageno (“in amazingly good shape, considering it’s covered in feathers” notes Rossi); his dusty rose and violet gown for the princess Pamina; a set of sun and star-adorned robes in jewel-tone greens and blues for the fatherly Sarastro; a wildly painted cobalt and aubergine silk chiffon and linen gown for the Queen of the Night (“If I could wear any costume in the exhibit, I would wear this one,” says Rossi); and a gold-lamé jacket-and-pant ensemble for the flute-playing hero Tamino, punctuated by an orange tie-dyed silk sash.

“It looks to me like something that would have been influenced by the Beatles, by India,” Rossi speculates about Tamino’s flair. “It could be me reading into it, but it definitely looks like something of what was happening in the world was sneaking in.” A Chagall homage to the counterculture? “He was really hip,” laughs Rossi. “I’ll just say it. It’s amazing.”

For an even more modern take on Mozart’s 1791 opera, museum visitors can head over to the local Glimmerglass Festival, where a new, completely contemporary production of The Magic Flute, directed by Madeline Sayet, goes up on Friday, and runs through August 23. “We were interested in exploring contemporary people trying to find balance and wholeness in life, finding oneself in nature,” I am told by the production’s costume designer Kaye Voyce, most recently responsible for outfitting Ewan McGregor and Maggie Gyllenhaal in last winter’s Broadway revival of **Tom Stoppard’**s The Real Thing. “Even in their most extreme, the costumes are definitely clothing.”

Voyce plans to see the Chagall show, but has been too slammed to make it yet (“honestly, the legacy and history of this piece is incredibly daunting!” she admits). For her own take, she looked at a range of influences: everything from technical gear to hunter camouflage to traditional Native American garb to neoclassical dresses. Her Queen of the Night will wear a twenties Madeleine Vionnet–inspired beaded gown that “feels like a dress you could wear to a gala.” Pamina wears a sweater skirt from Brooks Brothers Black Fleece. Sarastro has a coat made out of a neoprene fabric that could be mistaken for Alexander Wang. “We tried to figure out what it would look like at some deep secret lab at Apple where everything new is created,” she explains.

But it’s the hunter gatherer Papagena, who visually steals the show, spending two scenes encased in full 3-D camouflage—the type of fake grass and leaf-adorned, Big Foot–resembling getup that you might find skulking next to a rack of shotguns at your local Cabela’s.

“It’s called a Ghillie suit,” Voyce explains excitedly about her own over-the-top moment. “In the opera she’s supposed to appear in disguise. We thought that’s perfect! It kind of makes you look like a monster, but it’s great.”