The Magic Flute - Mozart

The Magic Flute (German: Die Zauberflöte), K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a
popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue.[a] The work premiered on 30
September 1791 at Schikaneder's theatre, the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, just two
months before the composer's premature death.

In the opera the Queen of the Night persuades Prince Tamino to rescue her daughter Pamina from
captivity under the high priest Sarastro; instead, he learns the high ideals of Sarastro's community
and seeks to join it. Separately, then together, Tamino and Pamina undergo severe trials of initiation,
which end in triumph, with the Queen and her cohorts vanquished. The earthy Papageno, who
accompanies Tamino on his quest, fails the trials completely but is rewarded anyway with the hand
of his ideal female companion Papagena.

Composition:
The opera was the culmination of a period of increasing involvement by Mozart with Schikaneder's
theatrical troupe, which since 1789 had been the resident company at the Theater auf der Wieden.
The libretto for The Magic Flute, written by Schikaneder, is thought by scholars to be based on many
sources.

In composing the opera, Mozart evidently kept in mind the skills of the singers intended for
the premiere, which included both virtuosi and ordinary comic actors asked to sing for the
occasion. Thus, the vocal lines for Papageno—sung by Schikaneder himself—and
Monostatos (Johann Joseph Nouseul) are often stated first in the strings so the singer can
find his pitch, and are frequently doubled by instruments. In contrast, Mozart's sister-in-law
Josepha Hofer, who premiered the role of the Queen of the Night, evidently needed little such
help: this role is famous for its difficulty. In ensembles, Mozart skillfully combined voices of
different ability levels.
The vocal ranges of two of the original singers for whom Mozart tailored his music have
posed challenges for many singers who have since recreated their roles. Both arias of the
Queen of the Night, "O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn" and "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem
Herzen" require high F6, rare in opera. At the low end, the part of Sarastro, premiered by Franz
Xaver Gerl, includes a conspicuous F2 in a few locations.
The Magic Flute - Mozart

Premiere and reception[edit]

The opera was premiered in Vienna on 30 September 1791 at the suburban Freihaus-Theater auf
der Wieden.[4] Mozart conducted the orchestra,[b] Schikaneder himself played Papageno, while the
role of the Queen of the Night was sung by Mozart's sister-in-law Josepha Hofer.

On the reception of the opera, Mozart scholar Maynard Solomon writes:

Although there were no reviews of the first performances,[6] it was immediately evident that Mozart
and Schikaneder had achieved a great success, the opera drawing immense crowds and reaching
hundreds of performances during the 1790s.[7]

As Mozart's letters show, he was very pleased to have achieved such a success. Solomon
continues:

Mozart's delight is reflected in his last three letters, written to Constanze, who with her sister Sophie
was spending the second week of October in Baden. "I have this moment returned from the opera,
which was as full as ever", he wrote on 7 October, listing the numbers that had to be encored. "But
what always gives me the most pleasure is the silent approval! You can see how this opera is
becoming more and more esteemed." … He went to hear his opera almost every night, taking along
[friends and] relatives.[7]

The opera celebrated its 100th performance in November 1792, though Mozart did not have the
pleasure of witnessing this milestone, as he had died 5 December 1791. The opera was first
performed outside Vienna (21 September 1792) in Lemberg,[8] then in Prague. It then made
(Branscombe) "triumphal progress through Germany's opera houses great and small",[9] and with the
early 19th century spread to essentially all the countries of Europe—and eventually, everywhere in
the world—where opera is cultivated.[10]

As Branscombe documents, the earlier performances were often of highly altered, sometimes even
mutilated, versions of the opera (see Ludwig Wenzel Lachnith). Productions of the past century have
tended to be more faithful to Mozart's music, though faithful rendering of Mozart and Schikaneder's
original (quite explicit) stage directions and dramatic vision continues to be rare; with isolated
exceptions, modern productions strongly reflect the creative preferences of the stage director.[11]
The Magic Flute - Mozart
The Magic Flute is presently among the most frequently performed of all operas; statistics collected
for the 2015-2016 season indicate over 500 productions worldwide, totaling more than 3000
performances.[12]

Themes[edit]

The Magic Flute is noted for its prominent Masonic elements,[15] although some scholars hold that the
Masonic influence is exaggerated.[16][17][18] Schikaneder and Mozart were Freemasons, as was Ignaz
Alberti, engraver and printer of the first libretto.[19] The opera is also influenced by Enlightenment
philosophy, and can be regarded as an allegory advocating enlightened absolutism. The Queen of
the Night represents a dangerous form of obscurantism or, according to some, the anti-Masonic
Roman Catholic Empress Maria Theresa,[20] or, according to others, the contemporary Roman
Catholic Church itself, which was also strongly anti-Masonic.[21] Her antagonist Sarastro symbolises
the enlightened sovereign who rules according to principles based on reason, wisdom, and nature.
The story itself portrays the education of mankind, progressing from chaos (the serpent) through
religious superstition (the Queen and Ladies) to rationalistic enlightenment (Sarastro and Priests), by
means of trial (Tamino) and error (Papageno), ultimately to make "the Earth a heavenly kingdom,
and mortals like the gods" ("Dann ist die Erd' ein Himmelreich, und Sterbliche den Göttern gleich");
this couplet is sung in the finales to both acts.
Modern audiences often find the prominent strains of misogyny and the casual racism in The Magic
Flute problematic.[22] Sarastro describes the Queen of the Night as usurping the rightful power of men
("[She is] a proud woman! A man must guide your hearts, for without him all women tend to step
outside their own sphere of activity"), and her supposed 'feminine' vindictive hysteria serves as a foil
for Sarastro's 'masculine' dignified reason. The perfidious villain Monostatos, meanwhile, is written
as a Moor (African).

Roles:

Premiere cast, 30 September 1791

Role Voice type
(conductor: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
Tamino tenor Benedikt Schack
Papageno baritone Emanuel Schikaneder
Pamina soprano Anna Gottlieb
The Queen of the Night [d]
soprano Josepha Hofer
Sarastro bass Franz Xaver Gerl
Papagena soprano Barbara Gerl
The Magic Flute - Mozart

Instrumentation[edit]
The work is scored for two flutes (one doubling on piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets (doubling
basset horns), two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, three trombones (alto, tenor, and bass),
timpani and strings. It also requires a four-part chorus for several numbers (notably the finales of
each act). Mozart also called for a stromento d'acciaio (instrument of steel) to perform Papageno's
magic bells; an instrument which has since been lost to history, though modern day scholars believe
it to be a keyed glockenspiel, which is usually substituted with a celesta in modern-day
performances.[27]

Charles Rosen has remarked on the character of Mozart's orchestration:

Die Zauberflöte has the greatest variety of orchestral color that the eighteenth century was to know;
the very lavishness, however, is paradoxically also an economy as each effect is a concentrated
one, each one—Papageno's whistle, the Queen of the Night's coloratura, the bells, Sarastro's
trombones, even the farewell in Scene I for clarinets and pizzicato strings—a single dramatic
stroke."[28]

Notes:
a. The genre of the work is hard to specify. The programme at the premiere performance announced it as "Eine
grosse oper" (A grand opera). Mozart entered the work in his personal catalog as a "German opera", and the
first printed libretto called it a Singspiel.
b. This is known from testimony by Ignaz von Seyfried (1776–1841), a composer who later (1798) became the
musical director at the same theatre. According to Seyfried's memories (which he published in the Neue
Zeitschrift für Musik, vol. 12, 5 June 1840, p. 184), "[Mozart] personally directed the premiere there on 30
September 1791, at which Süßmayr, the faithful Pylades, sat to his right, diligently turning the pages of the
score." The description implies that Mozart was seated at a keyboard instrument, playing along with the
orchestra, rather than standing on a podium with a baton; this was fairly standard practice for conductors in
Mozart's time.[5] Mozart conducted only the first two performances, whereupon direction was taken over by the
regular leader of the orchestra, Johann Baptist Henneberg (Abert 2007:1246).
c. The Queen is sometimes referred to by the name "Astrifiammante", an Italian translation of the German
adjective "sternflammende" ("star-blazing") in the original libretto
d. The three child-spirits are often portrayed by young boy singers but also sometimes by mature women,
particularly in studio recordings
e. For instance, in the videotaped performance from the Bayerisches Staatsoper, Munich, 19 September 1983,
available from Deutsche Grammophon
f. The hymn was translated by Martin Luther in 1524 from the eleventh Psalm

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