and The Magic Flute soon became considered an allegory for the plight of Freemasonry, with Born as Sarastro, Maria Theresa as the Queen of the Night, Joseph as Tamino and the Viennese people as Pamina. The opera’s intricate inherent symbolism continues to be heavily deconstructed to this day. Mozart and Schikaneder’s first order of business was to delight and entertain their ticket buyers, but were they also trying to send a deeper message? It is difficult to explain away the sudden shift from what begins as a standard “rescue opera” to one of deeper solemnity. One alternate theory (now largely discredited) is that Mozart and Schikaneder feared their creation too closely resembled a new work at the rival Leopoldstadt theater, Kaspar der Fagottist, oder Die Zauberzither (Kaspar the Bassoonist, or The Magic Zither), scheduled to open in early June – it, too, was purported to be drawn from the same Dschinnistan fairy tale. But in a letter to Constanze, Mozart dismissed it as “nothing at all.” It is more likely that the opera served as spiritual propaganda – the future of the Order was in limbo in the new regime. The previously tolerant Joseph had already reduced the number of Masonic lodges in Vienna to three, and his reactionary and fearful nephew, Francis ii, would eradicate Freemasonry completely from Austria just a few years later. Whatever the higher purpose may have been, The Magic Flute was a hit when it opened on September 30, 1791, and played almost every night well into November. Mozart attended the opera as often as he could and replayed it in his head once bedridden and close to death. His one-time nemesis, Antonio Salieri, now out of the new emperor’s favor, gave it genuine praise. Stylistically, the opera has something for everyone – coloratura opera seria arias (the Queen), simple folk song (Papageno), religious hymn (the Priests’ march), a gripping suicide aria (Pamina), contrapuntal vivacity (the overture) – as well as opportunities for dazzling visual spectacle. Never having fallen out of fashion, The Magic Flute continues to engage audiences of all ages.
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| THE MAGIC FLUTE
than for those written for the Burgtheater, freeing the two artists to draw from a wealth of ideas. The magical elements appear to have been borrowed from a set of fairy tales collected by Christoph Martin Wieland, entitled Dschinnistan, which included Lulu, oder Die Zauberflöte (Lulu, or The Magic Flute) by Jakob August Liebeskind. Parallels can also be drawn to Chrétien de Troyes’ 12th-century ballad, Yvain, with regard to the monster-fighting scene and the inclusion of a hybrid creature of man and beast. There are suggestions of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest in the characters of Sarastro (Prospero), Pamina (Miranda), Tamino (Ferdinand) and Papageno (Caliban), not to mention the spirit of the Queen of the Night in Shakespeare’s vanquished witch Sycorax and the Three Spirits embodying Prospero’s fairy-servant Ariel. Further elements seem to have been drawn from pantomime, moralizing puppet plays and Italian commedia dell’arte, along with several borrowings from Mozart and Schikaneder’s earlier works. Yet the bulk of The Magic Flute appears to have been inspired by Abbé Jean Terrasson’s Egyptian tale Séthos, which describes the progress and religious transformation of its princely title character. This novel, which Terrasson tried to pass off as actual history, also served as a “bible” for Freemasonry, a quasireligious society founded in early 18th-century England and widely practiced all over Europe during the Age of Enlightenment. At that time, just about every significant male leader, either directly involved in politics or as a member of the greater artistic cognoscenti, was a Freemason. Fearing the eclipse of Christianity, the Vatican issued a Papal Bull denouncing the order, and Empress Maria Theresa had tried to suppress the sect, her severity only to be repudiated by her more permissive son Joseph after her death in 1780. An essay, On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, by a leading Mason (and former metallurgist to the empress) Ignaz von Born also served as inspiration,
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