That winter as he lay dying, the composer had the consolation of knowing that The Magic Flute was still playing to enthusiastic, sold-out audiences - the greatest hit of his career. It was premiered on September 30, 1791, under Mozart's baton, just nine weeks before his death. Schikaneder himself wrote the fantastic fairy-tale libretto for Die Zauberflöte, or The Magic Flute as we know it in English, and Mozart clothed it in music of sublime simplicity and wit. He asked Mozart to create a new singspiel - the Viennese equivalent of a Broadway musical - to present at the Theater auf der Wieden, a venue that catered to the ordinary Viennese public rather than the aristocratic audiences Mozart usually composed for. Then in the middle of 1791, another fellow Mason, the singer-impresario Emanuel Schikaneder, came to the rescue with a very unusual project. The fickle Viennese public seemed to have lost interest in his music, a major court appointment always eluded him, and he had to borrow large sums of money from his Masonic brother Michael Puchberg to support his wife and children. Trials await him as well, but less demanding ones than those imposed on Tamino and Pamina.ĭespite the traps laid by the Queen of the Night, her three servants and the slave Monostatos, Pamina and Tamino manage to pass the trials of water and fire, guided in their initiation by the “omnipotence of music.”Papageno has finally found his Papagena.The evil forces having been swallowed up by the dark, Sarastro celebrates the young couple’s happiness: “the rays of the sun push back the night.In the last three years of his all-too-brief life, Mozart experienced a steady stream of disappointments. The cowardly Papageno, a big-hearted boaster, has no grand dreams: just a little woman to be his companion – a Papagena.
#Wolfgang amadeus mozart the magic flute trial#
Pamina is unaware of what awaits her.Sarastro cites the principles of peace that reign over the place, and Tamino, who is made to undergo a trial of silence, remains desperately quiet.She thinks of killing herself.
#Wolfgang amadeus mozart the magic flute free#
Papageno is given a set of bells and Tamino a magic flute – two instruments that will help them in their journey.But during their trip Tamino discovers that the forces of evil are not on Sarastro’s side but on the side of the Queen of the Night:she has deceived him and will stop at nothing to take revenge on Sarastro, whom she despises.Filled with trials, Tamino’s path to free and win over Pamina is loaded with symbols which, from one scene to the next, lead them towards love and light, under Sarastro’s benevolent wisdom.The Queen of the Night and her retinue end up destroyed.īefore the three gates of Wisdom, Reason and Nature, Tamino learns that the magician has taken Pamina away for her own good, in order to snatch her away from the harmful influence of her mother the Queen.The Queen, filled with hatred, is willing to do anything to get revenge, and when she appears before her daughter, it is to encourage her to kill Sarastro – in an aria with vocalisations as sharp as daggers. Prince Tamino is sent by the Queen of the Night to free his daughter Pamina from the prisons of the magician Sarastro, described as a tyrant.Guided by the Queen’s three ladies, Tamino is accompanied by Papageno, a colourful bird catcher, whose cowardice contrasts with Tamino’s nobility and courage. The Magic Flute is intended for people of all ages, with its marvellous music, one of the most poetic and luminous works ever written by Mozart.The book by Emanuel Schikaneder lends itself to all sorts of interpretations:Is it a children’s story?An esoteric and initiatory tale, loaded with Freemasonry symbols?Or, more simply, a popular allegorical fable, a shining marriage of noble ideas and childish wanderings, enlightened, ordered and balanced by Mozart’s divine hand?Every listener can hear it reveal its keys… The mysterious, bewitching and inexhaustible Magic Flute ! Composed feverishly a few weeks before his death, this lyrical testament by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is the universal opera par excellence, a source of joy and perpetual wonder, a tender and profound companion that will be with us for life.
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