Magic Flute

[Flosshilde]

Fair enough - and your interpretation of the plot is something to which you are entitled (I certainly see what you mean). But what about Mozart's interpretation of the plot? The music at the end of Zauberflöte doesn't sound tragic, bitter or the consequence of an exposé of Sarastro's goings-on. At least it doesn't to me. Which is why I'd struggle with your view of the text attached to Mozart's score.

No, it doesn't - but it does (IMIR) end with a song of praise for Sarastro and a sense of triumph. Which tend to underline my feelings about it.

[Barbirollians]

The music is sublime and overcomes the Masonic bilge IMO .

[LeMartinPecheur]

We must be pretty thick on these boards, finding so many problems with Zauberflote

Jane Glover in Mozart's Women tell us there are three separate plots, the rescue/ trials plot for Pamina and Tamino, Papageno's comic search for a wife, and the allegorical masonic plot around Sarastro and the Queen of the Night. "With all these completely disparate elements flung into the creative pot, the result could so easily have been at best a kind of variety show, in which one turn succeeded another with little coordination between them, and at worst a disastrous mish-mash of chaotic confusion and a total absence of clear narrative. But with the combined creative artistry of Mozart and Schikaneder, Die Zauberflote is an unquestioned masterpiece of clarity and passion, and is utterly unique."

So there! I trust all is now clear

Actually, that is more or less my experience of the work. Whilst recognizing the justice of many of the comments above about plot inconsistencies etc, Mozart's music seems to make these unimportant. When his music tells you it's a 'happy and glorious' ending, then it just is, no contest.

[Thropplenoggin]

Kingfisher, would you recommend the Glover book. I've had my eye on it for a while, and have just finished Solomon's mammoth (and pyschoanalytically-heavy) biog.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Kingfisher, would you recommend the Glover book. I've had my eye on it for a while, and have just finished Solomon's mammoth (and pyschoanalytically-heavy) biog.

Haven't quite finished it myself but I would recommend it. It's a fairly light read, though thoroughly researched and documented.

While obviously it has a lot to say about Wolfgang (especially his vocal works inc. operas), its focus tries to be on his mother, sister, and all the Weber sisters, but particularly Constanze of course. What was particularly interesting and new to me was the discussion of the close relationship between Constanze, her second husband Nissen, and Nannerl in Salzburg in the early C19, including Nissen's estimable work in gathering letters, documents and eye-witness testimony for a planned first full WAM biography, work frustrated by his own sudden death. This material was then used, very incompetently, by one Feuerstein in his Biographie W A Mozarts though I think Nissen may still be cited as its author, even though he didn't get much further than the preface apparently.

There's also quite interesting stuff about Mozart's two sons who survived to adulthood, especially Franz Xavier Mozart (aka Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart!) who had - maybe still has - some small reputation as a composer. Barbara Bonney got quite keen on his Lieder, though I've seen them described as standard early-romantic sub-sub-Schubert at best. I have one vln/pf work of his played by Gidon Kremer no less, but this powerful advocacy alas hasn't printed it on my memory

Constanze emerges as a very good, competent woman, not at all the dizzy, expensive floozy of some WAM biographies.

[Thropplenoggin]

Haven't quite finished it myself but I would recommend it. It's a fairly light read, though thoroughly researched and documented.

While obviously it has a lot to say about Wolfgang (especially his vocal works inc. operas), its focus tries to be on his mother, sister, and all the Weber sisters, but particularly Constanze of course. What was particularly interesting and new to me was the discussion of the close relationship between Constanze, her second husband Nissen, and Nannerl in Salzburg in the early C19, including Nissen's estimable work in gathering letters, documents and eye-witness testimony for a planned first full WAM biography, work frustrated by his own sudden death. This material was then used, very incompetently, by one Feuerstein in his Biographie W A Mozarts though I think Nissen may still be cited as its author, even though he didn't get much further than the preface apparently.

There's also quite interesting stuff about Mozart's two sons who survived to adulthood, especially Franz Xavier Mozart (aka Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart!) who had - maybe still has - some small reputation as a composer. Barbara Bonney got quite keen on his Lieder, though I've seen them described as standard early-romantic sub-sub-Schubert at best. I have one vln/pf work of his played by Gidon Kremer no less, but this powerful advocacy alas hasn't printed it on my memory

Constanze emerges as a very good, competent woman, not at all the dizzy, expensive floozy of some WAM biographies.

Sold, to the man in the pith helmet!

Much obliged for your thorough and thoroughly-entertaining response!

[LeMartinPecheur]

Sold, to the man in the pith helmet!

Much obliged for your thorough and thoroughly-entertaining response!

A pleasure, Throps, but you might perhaps bear in mind that my copy cost a mere £2 s/h from a splendid recycling centre at Chagford, Devon

(My previous visit a couple of years ago yielded a CD of Feldman's Piano and String Quartet, so person(s?) of extreme culture must lurk on Dartmoor!)

[Thropplenoggin]

A pleasure, Throps, but you might perhaps bear in mind that my copy cost a mere £2 s/h from a splendid recycling centre at Chagford, Devon

(My previous visit a couple of years ago yielded a CD of Feldman's Piano and String Quartet, so person(s?) of extreme culture must lurk on Dartmoor!)

Alas, no such cultured souls live in St. Albans. There isn't even a decent coffee to be had here, tho' a small deli has just opened up and the Farmer's Market has some very decent fare. I digress. My Solomon came via the Amazon marketplace. An immaculate hardback edition with dust cover for £0.01. I felt quite guilty when I received it.

[gurnemanz]

There is an excellent chapter devoted to Die Zauberflöte in Brigid Morphy's Mozart the Dramatist (written in the early '60s) which chronicles the background to the singspiel.

[Typo: Brigid Brophy.] She does a very thorough job on pulling together the disparate elements and plot changes, which greatly helped me to arrive at some insights into what Mozart and Schikaneder are up to in terms of ideas, in addition to just giving us great music and entertainment, and to come to terms with apparent contradictions and ambiguities:

Originally, it was going to be a kind of Orpheus rescue from Hades (Tamino is not allowed to speak to Pamina). The Flute isn't actually magic but is an emblem for the power of music. What was originally hellish turns out to be benign (enemies of Freemasonry liked to slander it as evil). Tamino (Man) must learn to be more Enlightened and rational and not fear Hell and Night (or its Queen). Blindfolded, he overcomes the trials imposed on him. Pamina was stolen for her own good. So it turned into (or took on the extra meaning of) an initiation story.

The Queen must have been originally good. ("sternflammende Königin" with arias that sparkle - more light than dark)

Misogynist elements (inherent in Masonry) are counterbalanced by Pamina's character and in sentiments like:
"Mann und Weib, und Weib und Mann,
Reichen an die Gottheit an."

Amazingly, all the bits do somehow come together.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Many thanks for that, gurne - I'm not sure where "Morphy" came from, but it might partially explain why I can't find my copy of the book!

[aeolium]

Yes, Brophy does suggest the possibility that the "star-blazing Queen" was originally a good character and Sarastro a dark one and elements of this remain in the finished opera even though the roles have been reversed. The association of the star with the Queen would have been a good one for Masons, and she is not referred to as the Queen of the Night until much later in the opera. Her own ladies-in-waiting rescue the hero at the start of the opera and provide Tamino and Papageno with their magic instruments, as well as the three boys to guide and advise them. Sarastro undoubtedly has Pamina held under duress, keeps slaves and allows the evil Monostatos power over Pamina. And even though no vengeance is allowed in "these holy halls", he punishes Monostatos with 77 strokes and is presumably responsible for the overthrow and destruction of the Queen, Monostatos and the Ladies near the conclusion of the opera.

I think it's hard to overstate the Masonic influences in the story and music. H C Robbins Landon devotes some pages to this in his "1791: Mozart's Last Year". Influential sources for the MF include the opera Oberon which had been put on by Schikaneder in a version by fellow Mason Gieseke (who later claimed to have written much of the libretto for MF), the play Thamos King of Egypt by another Mason von Gebler and especially the novel the Life of Sethos by Terrasson. Both the impresario and composer were Masons, and even the printer who engraved the very Masonic frontispiece of the 1791 libretto for the first performance, Alberti, was a Mason. Both libretto and music feature repeated iterations of the number 3 in various forms, not only the "dreimaliger Akkord", the three-flats key signature, the March of the Priests with its threefold sequence of eight-note phrases, the use of the basset-horns in Sarastro's aria O Isis und Osiris (Mozart had also used them in the Maurerische Trauermusik). The libretto requires precisely 18 priests and chairs at the beginning of Act 2 and the first section of the chorus the priests sing is 18 bars long. The trials by fire and water could be seen as Masonic tests. The opera was intended to be seen as a Masonic one, and perhaps a statement of support for the Masons at a time when they were under pressure because their ideas were seen by some as tainted by association with the dangerous ideas of republicanism and revolution (George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were both Masons, and it is possible that Thomas Jefferson was).

Whatever we think of Freemasonry now - and it has surely changed greatly since the late C18 - we ought to recognise its huge influence on the composition of the Magic Flute. I would like to see a production which fully exploited the Masonic and Egyptian imagery contained in the libretto. The recent ROH one did emphasise the Masonic content but presented it in a malign way not consistent with the intentions of the work's authors. There is such scope for amazing designs here (not forgetting of course the comic scenes).

[french frank]

This sounds very much like common medieval conflation of various, not necessarily related, folk stories, brought together with greater or lesser coherence to form a new story. So although there may have been elements of one story in which the Queen was a goodie and Sarastro the baddie, it doesn't actually mean that in the Magic Flute that was intended to be the case. Old stories have been put to a new use.

The new overall subject which is intended to bind the bits together would be the Masonic - that of the individual's quest for Enlightenment. And, contrary to any misogynistic qualities, Pamina at the end is surely seen as an equal of Tamino - they both undergo the final test together, don't they?

[Flosshilde]

Aeolium & Gurnemanz, thank you, that's all extremely interesting.

Hockney's designs for the Glyndebourne production used Egyptian motifs, as well as some Masonic ones, & Fra Angelico for the dragon & the Queen's 3 ladies, & the rock the Queen emerges from for her first appearance.