Programme booklet »Die Zauberflöte«

WOLFGANG A M ADEUS MOZART

DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE

CONTENTS

P.

4

SYNOPSIS P.

8

CREATION AND WORLD PREMIÈRE GERNOT GRUBER P.

12

THE MAGIC FLUTE MAKER VOLKER HAGEDORN P.

20

“A WOMAN DOES LITTLE, BABBLES A LOT” ADELE BERNHARD

P.

26

POWER & MUSIC GERNOT GRUBER P.

30

THE MULTIPLE ENDINGS OF THE MAGIC FLUTE BARBORA HORÁKOVÁ P.

34

SPOTLIGHT ON THE MAGIC FLUTE OLIVER LÁNG P.

38

IMPRINT

WOLFGANG A M ADEUS MOZART

DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE GERMAN OPERA

in two acts Text EMANUEL SCHIKANEDER

ORCHESTRA

2 flutes (2nd piccolo) 2 oboes 2 clarinets (basset horn) 2 bassoons / 2 horns 2 trumpets / 3 trombones timpani / bell piano violin I / violin II viola / violoncello double bass 1 flute / 2 trumpets timpani / 2 flutes 2 oboes / bassoon 2 clarinets / 2 horns 2 trumpets / 3 trombones

STAGE MUSIC

AUTOGRAPH NATIONAL LIBRARY BERLIN WORLD PREMIÈRE 30 SEPTEMBER 1791 Wien, Freihaustheater auf der Wieden FIRST PERFORMANCE ON THE HOUSE ON THE RING 1 SEPTEMBER 1869 DURATION

3H

INCL. 1 INTERMISSION

..

D I E Z AU B E R F L OT E

SYNOPSIS ACT 1 Prince Tamino is being pursued by a serpent. Three Ladies, emissaries of the Queen of the Night, rush to help the poor man, who has fainted. When he comes to, he sees the bird catcher Papageno, who has come as usual to exchange the birds he has caught on behalf of the Queen for food and drink.

Tamino thinks it is Papageno he must thank for saving him – Papageno feels flattered and accepts the compliment. As punishment for his boastfulness, the Ladies, who have now returned, silence him. They show Tamino a picture of their ruler’s daughter. When he learns that the girl has been kid­ napped, he wants only one thing: to save Pamina. The Queen appears, strengthens Tamino in his resolve to free Pamina from Sarastro’s clutches, and promises to give him her daugh­ ter's hand. Papageno is to accompany Tamino on his quest. In case of danger, the magic flute and a glockenspiel will help them; Three Boys will show them the way.

Sarastro’s slave overseer Monostatos has recaptured Pamina, who was trying to escape. He is filled with desire, but when he tries to approach her, he encounters Papageno, who has been sent ahead by Tamino. Both are frightened by each other, and Monostatos runs away. Papageno tells Pamina about the res­ cue plan; together they praise love as the fulfilment of human existence.

Tamino, led by the Three Boys, has meanwhile reached the interior of Sarastro’s temple precinct. A priest approaches him and warns him to examine Sarastro’s reasons for kidnapping Pamina without prejudice.

Previous pages:

SCENE

4

SYNOPSIS

Pamina and Papageno are surprised by Monostatos and his slaves during their escape, but the power of the glockenspiel saves them from capture. Now, Sarastro’s return from the hunt is heralded. Pamina admits to Sarastro that she had planned to escape: she wanted to evade Monostatos’ advances. Saras­ tro punishes Monostatos, although he is also pleased to have captured Tamino. Pamina and Tamino see each other for the first time. Sarastro has Tamino and Papageno led to the tem­ ple of trials.

ACT 2 In the meeting of priests, Sarastro explains that Tamino and Pa­ mina are destined for each other by the gods. But first, they are separated and must take their leave of each other.

Tamino and Papageno are to undergo a series of trials. Tamino is willing to do this, while Papageno has to be persuaded by the promise of getting a wife. Both are sworn to secrecy.

The Queen’s Three Ladies, who have infiltrated Sarastro’s king­ dom, try to distract Tamino and Papageno from their goal.

The enamoured Monostatos tries to kiss the sleeping Pamina.

The Queen of the Night intervenes. She demands that Pamina kill Sarastro and hand over to her the powerful sun circle that she wants to have for herself. Monostatos overhears the conver­ sation and tries to take advantage of the situation. Then, Sarastro appears and promises Pamina that he will not take revenge on her mother. Monostatos decides to use the Queen of the Night to realise his wish.

Papageno cannot remain silent. In a conversation with an old woman, he learns that she wants him as her husband; before he grasps who she is, the old woman disappears. The Three Boys bring the flute and glockenspiel that had been taken from the candidates and warn them again to be silent. Papageno gives up the opportunity to be one of the initiates; he wants a wife, a Papagena. The old woman appears again, revealing herself to be a young Papagena, but she is snatched away from him again.

5

..

D I E Z AU B E R F L OT E

Pamina has followed Tamino's flute playing; she cannot under­ stand his silence and doubts his love. She resolves to commit sui­ cide. The Three Boys tell her that Tamino still loves her.

Two men in armour prepare Tamino for the final trial. Pamina is determined to go with him on the difficult path through fire and water. The sound of the flute protects them from the dangers around them.

Papageno wanders around desperately searching for Papagena.

In his torment he wants to hang himself. The Three Boys re­ mind him of the power of his glockenspiel, with which he can summon Papagena.

The Queen tries to enter the temple with Monostatos and her Three Ladies. Sarastro’s sun stops them, and they are plunged into eternal night. But the love of Tamino and Pamina dissolves the border between light and darkness.

6

ALMA NEUHAUS, JENNI HIETALA &

STEPHANIE MAITLAND as THE THREE LADIES

GERNOT GRUBER

CREATION

AND WORLD PREMIÈRE Mozart’s last year is surrounded by wildly implausible legends faced by a strikingly small amount of reliable evidence. As a result, we can only make assumptions about the circumstances leading to the creation of the Magic Flute. There is no documentation of even such prosaic facts as a contract be­ tween the parties commissioning the work, the two owners of the Freihaus­ theater auf der Wieden, Joseph von Bau­ ernfeld and Emanuel Schikaneder, and Mozart, or of the amount of Mozart’s fee for the commission.

It is only with Schikaneder’s move to Vienna in early 1789 and his take­ over of the Freihaustheater, where he began performances in the summer of that year that a situation arose where the Magic Flute plan could be carried out. Mozart’s interest in Schikaneder’s comments is clear from his own state­ ments: for example he writes on 2 June 1790 to his wife Constanze about a visit to the Freihaustheater: “…yesterday I was at the second part of Una cosa rara – but I don’t like it as much as Anton’s.”

Mozart must accordingly have been to this theatre earlier and often. He was familiar with Schikaneder’s style of singing German, and also with Chris­ toph Martin Wieland’s popular col­ lection of tales, Dschinnistan, which was dramatised in all its pieces at

Schikaneder’s theatre. Mozart was present in Frankfurt for the success of Paul Wranitzky’s Oberon, and wrote to Constanze “ – all my entertainment is at this theatre…”

The claim that Schikaneder went to Mozart on 7 March 1791 in finan­ cial difficulties, asked him to compose a magical opera out of friendship, and submitted the material for the Magic Flute at the same time is at least partly false, as Schikaneder was financially prosperous then. Equally false is the story that Schikaneder and Mozart be­ longed to the same Freemason lodge, which is generally offered as evidence of their friendship. As a result, we may perhaps never know where the truth lies between the duo’s alleged easygoing lifestyle and Schikaneder’s sim­ ilarly alleged shameless exploitation of Mozart. However, there is no reason to assume any very strained relation­ ship between the two. Franz Xaver Niemetschek’s comment seems almost benevolently vague here: “he com­ posed the Magic Flute for the theatre of Schikaneder, who was his old ac­ quaintance.” We should also remember that Mozart associated with several members of the Schikaneder ensemble and was a friend of Schikaneder’s com­ panion Joseph von Bauernfeld. The joint circle of acquaintances is likely to have

8

CREATION AND WORLD PREMIÈRE

played a great role in the collaboration between Schikaneder and Mozart.

Mozart probably began compos­ ing the Magic Flute in early 1791, al­ though the plan and initial outlines may predate this. After a successful winter composing, Mozart wrote Aria KV 612 in March for Franz Xaver Gerl, the first performer of Sarastro, the pi­ ano variations KV 613, with their links to Schikaneder’s associates, and entered string quintet KV 614 in the catalogue of his works on 12 April. As these were followed by incidental works, we can assume that Mozart was intensively occupied with composing the Magic Flute, as also indicated by Mozart’s apology to Michel Puchberg, written between 21-27 April “because I have so much to do.”

At the start of June, Constanze went to the spa in Baden and stayed there for over a month, while Mozart remained in Vienna. We are well informed of this period and the progress of work on the Magic Flute through Mozart’s letters to his wife. (There are also various more or less credible assumptions about the ad­ dress, rooms and furniture Mozart used in composing the Magic Flute. Mainly, Mozart “will naturally have worked at home in Rauhensteingasse.” On 7 June, for the first time Mozart men­ tions Schikaneder, and the Magic Flute for the first time on 11 June: “I composed an aria from the opera today out of sheer boredom”, ending the letter ” …and say with you in mind that death and despair were his reward.” We can leave aside the question whether Mozart’s reference to the duet, showed he was already work­ ing on the draft score of act 2.

Mozart explains the demand for­ warded by Constanze for Süßmayr “to write quickly that I get my materials.”

“Please tell that idiot Süßmayr to send me the short score of act 1, from the introduction to the finale, so I can orchestrate it.” This means that Franz Xaver Süßmayr, who was staying in Baden with Constanze, had to copy Mo­ zart’s short scores, as the copy would be needed for vocal rehearsals. In any case, Mozart was already thinking at the start of July of orchestrating act 1, and was far advanced with the composition of act 2, as he writes to Constanze on 3 July: “I hope Süßmayr won’t forget to write down what I explained to him – and I also hope I get the pieces of my score I asked for today.” The numerous letters from the first half of July attest to intensive effort, but also to social prob­ lems which Mozart wanted to avoid.

He had probably largely completed the numbers needing vocal rehearsals “in July” when he entered the compo­ sition of the “German Opera in Two Acts” in the catalogue of his works.

Mozart also wrote the Kleine deutsche Kantate KV 619 in the same month, but he was increasingly under pressure from the opera seria La clemenza di Tito, which he completed in Prague, where he arrived from Vienna on 28 August.

Mozart returned to Vienna from this last stay in Prague together with Süß­ mayr and Constanze in mid-September, where (we can reasonably assume) he plunged immediately into preparations for the world première of the Magic Flute, which Johann Baptist Henneberg had been conducting.

The final composition of the over­ ture and the March of the Priests (no. 9), which Mozart did not enter in his cata­ logue of his works until 28 September, presumably took place in this period.

Mozart also entered the “three times three chord”, and presumably also parts

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CREATION AND WORLD PREMIÈRE

of the orchestration. The world première of the piece was at the Freihaustheater auf der Wieden on 30 September, and a playbill from this has been preserved.

Mozart conducted the première himself, passing the baton to Hen­ neberg after the second performance.

We know very little about the staging or sets, and the two copperplate engrav­ ings Ignaz Alberti printed in his edition of the first libretto give us little insight The first engraving is an allegory with Masonic symbols rather than a picture of a set, the second shows Schikaneder in a Papageno costume without a bird in a cage or panpipes. However, in line with Schikaneder’s attitude to the theatre, the scenery undoubtedly re­ flected the prevailing enjoyment of visual impact and the preference for the effects of theatrical machinery, both of which had been passed down from the Baroque. Specifically, we know that the animals of all kinds summoned

by Tamino’s playing were physically shown, just like Sarastro’s lion.

There are contradictory reports on the scale of the world première’s success. The literary embroidery on events mostly follow an anonymous report on 9 October which says, “The new comic opera, the Magic Flute, fell short of the hoped-for applause.” This is contradicted by a statement in one of Mozart’s letters: “the most striking thing is that the evening my new opera was premièred to so much applause was the same evening my [Clemenza di] Tito was performed for the last time, also to extraordinary applause.” The reason for the rapid public success of the Magic Flute, which then spread for the most part to Schikaneder’s artistic status

was probably not regarded as Mozart’s music, but its association with the “spectacle” that Schikaneder presented to the Viennese audiences. In October 1791 alone, there were over 20 perfor­ mances. In November, several Viennese publishers started marketing piano re­ ductions of individual numbers from the opera.

However, Mozart himself was par­ ticularly concerned that audiences should understand the significant con­ tent of both music and libretto. When he took his mother-in-law to the Magic Flute, he told his wife “for Mama, that meant she saw the opera, but didn’t hear the opera,” and he said that an “omnisci­ ent” opera goer “laughed at everything”, calling him “a Papageno”, but not believing “that the idiot understood.”

The same attitude is reflected in an­ other letter. “Lechleitner was at the opera again – he may not be a connois­ seur, but at least he’s a real fan.”

Despite increasing irritation, the success of the Magic Flute seems to have set Mozart in high spirits, and the letters to his wife, who was back in Baden for the spa, are full of enthu­ siastic reports of the opera. He reports in detail how much Salieri praised the opera, but the best known (and rightly) is an excerpt from a letter describing Mozart’s artistic intents in a few words.

Late at night, he writes to Constanze on 7 October 1791, “I have just come from the opera – it was as packed as ever. The ‘Man and Wife’ duet, the bells in act 1, were encored as usual, as well as the boys’ trio in act 2, but what pleased me most was the silent applause! You can see clearly how the opera is becoming more and more famous.”

10

GEORG ZEPPENFELD as SARASTRO

VOLKER HAGEDORN

THE MAGIC FLUTE MAKER Mozart was idolised for his music – and The Magic Flute became a favourite op­ era in German-speaking countries.

The librettist and producer Emanuel Schikaneder, however, is still derided and disparaged as an entertainment nerd. The story of an unappreciated man.

He takes aim, fires. Bang. Just misses. He has other bolts in his quiver, says the man in the scarlet tailcoat; he lowers the weapon, waves his tri­ corn hat and bows to his hostess. She blushes, takes her air gun, puts a feath­ ered bolt in the track. Bull’s eye. Right in the naked buttocks painted in the middle of the target. The company in the dance master’s hall cheers. Maria Anna Mozart, not quite 30, steps aside, now it’s her brother’s turn. Short, pale, very exuberant, five years her junior. He misses the buttocks by 20 centimetres, turns abruptly to the windows along one side of the hall through which the sun is finally shining again, and expresses his enthusiasm in typical Mozart fashion.

This gives you a rough idea of the bolt-shooting contest in Salzburg in September 1780, when Emanuel Schikaneder, the guest in a tailcoat, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart aim at a single target. The targets cannot be painted suggestively enough in the Mozart’s favourite sport. Shooting costs

36 kreuzers, which is also the price of the best tickets to the theatre across the street, where Schikaneder’s travelling troupe will be playing over the winter. singspiele and farces with titles like The Merry Shoemaker and The Donkey as Deserter, but also Shakespeare’s Hamlet, where the director is neither too small for a hero nor too refined for a buffoon.

The 29-year-old Schikaneder likes the Mozarts, and they like him. A cross-section of his Salzburg audi­ ence assembles there, from merchants’ daughters to prince-bishops’ private tu­ tors. Of course, Schikaneder knew that the young court organist Wolfgang Am­ adeus, already famous as a child, has now even been commissioned to write an opera for the Munich court. Never­ theless, he gives the family free tickets for the whole season, and not just for tactical reasons. He feels that these peo­ ple understand him. The Mozarts have seen more of the world than he has, and yet they are amazingly down-to-earth.

It is completely unimportant here that he started out as the lowest of the low.

Johann Joseph Schikaneder was born on 1 September 1751, the third child of two day labourers in Straub­ ing, Bavaria. He died in Vienna on 21 September 1812. The fact that we know about him at all, that researchers, poets, biographers and film-makers

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THE MAGIC FLUTE MAKER

have studied him, is thanks to some­ thing that Mozart noted in his “cata­ logue” in 1791: “the Magic Flute. – per­ formed on 30th September – a German opera in 2 acts by Eman. Schikaneder.”

This is far removed from the autumn days of 1780, but in fact he started much earlier. Anyone who wants to know why The Magic Flute is familiar even to those who otherwise don’t care about opera, including operas by Mozart, will find Schikaneder to be someone who had to deal with every kind of audience on his way to the top.

At the age of just two, he loses his father; his mother sells devotional items from a stall at Regensburg Cathedral.

The Jesuits admit the bright boy and his older brother to the grammar school as scholarship students, and there he learns to play the violin and read music in addition to a few bits of Latin, but an academic career is out of the question.

He starts out as a “minstrel” with two other travelling musicians, and not for the first time runs into the arrogance of “better” people, against whom he must defend himself. “I probably studied just as well as you, the only difference is that I was poor and you are quite possibly a rich fool!” This is what he wrote in his play The Minstrels or Merry Misery, one of his most successful plays.

In 1773, a travelling troupe of ac­ tors takes in the strikingly attractive, multi-talented 22-year-old. At this time, some priests are still refusing to administer the last rites to actors and absolution to their audiences, farmers are attacking travelling troupes with pitchforks, and the quip “put away the washing, the comedians are coming” is still meant seriously. At the same time, character actors such as Konrad Ekhof and his student August Wilhelm Iffland

establish an art of acting from which Friedrich Schiller also benefits at one of the new national theatres; these the­ atres are something between a court theatre and a travelling stage and are intended for the middle class.

HIS REPERTOIRE INCLUDES WORKS BY GOETHE, BUT ALSO FARCES WITH BEARS AND MONKEYS Johann Joseph Schikaneder, who has now given himself the classier name Emanuel, is also drawn to the bour­ geois audience. But when he comes to Augsburg with the theatre troupe of August Schopf and Theresia Schimann in 1776, he realises that educated peo­ ple also enjoy somewhat bawdier en­ tertainment. It is not Goethe’s Clavigo or Lessing’s Emilia Galotti that are well attended, but military spectacles such as The Count of Walltron, which 44 men of the city guard march up to attend.

Schikaneder remembers this and later stages the piece as a gigantic open-air event, with horses and cannons and a two-horse carriage from which Ele­ onore Schikaneder, née Arth, emerges as Countess Walltron.

Schikaneder married his colleague of the same age in Augsburg and will have much to thank her for – but not the two children he becomes father to in 1779. The boy’s mother was the actress Maria Anna Miller, the girl’s mother was the daughter of a citizen of Augs­ burg. Reason enough to leave the city, where he has since become the head of a travelling troupe, responsible for 32 employees – and for more children.

A year later, his married colleague Juli­ ana Moll gives birth to a boy, to whom Schikaneder and his wife become god­

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VOLKER HAGEDORN

parents. “First a little Papageno! Then a little Papagena! Then another Pa­ pageno...” Schikaneder will later have a happily conceiving couple sing, for whose male role he is a model in several respects.

When he arrives in Salzburg in 1780, the multi-talented thespian has already performed with his troupe in Ulm, Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Ljubljana, Klagenfurt and Linz, and proved adept at resolving bankruptcies and scandals.

As a guest soloist, he caused a sensation in the role of Hamlet at the Court The­ atre in Munich. Shakespeare is part of his repertoire, as are Lessing and Goethe, small operas, singspiele and simple tearjerkers, and other plays from his own pen have followed his Minstrels, such as The Regenspurger Ship, in which there are bears and monkeys, lightning and thunder.

“How is Schickaneder?” Mozart asks in January 1781, now in Munich, where he has even composed an aria for his new friend’s theatre while working on Idomeneo. Then he does not mention him in his letters for ten years. Ten years in which he reaches the peak of his art, writes music history in almost every genre and reinvents opera with the congenial librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte.

Of course, he must have run into the Bavarian man of the theatre again in the meantime; he was now making a name for himself in Vienna – with a detour via Bratislava, where Emperor Joseph II saw the troupe in his way through town and was so impressed that he invited their leader to Vienna take the position of director at the Kärntnertor Theatre in 1784.

There, Schikaneder opens the sea­ son with Mozart’s popular The Abduction from the Seraglio and plans a far

spicier show for February 1785: he has Beaumarchais’ comedy La Folle Journée ou Le Mariage de Figaro translated. But the Austrian première of the politically explosive piece is banned on the day of the première – which in turn gives Mozart the idea of asking da Ponte to rework the material into a libretto. The Enlightenment is now entering its revo­ lutionary phase; at the same time, crossclass Freemasonry is flourishing. In 1784, Mozart joins the “Zur Wohltätig­ keit” lodge in Vienna, and four years later Schikaneder joins “Die Wachsende zu den drei Schlüsseln” in Regensburg, his last stop before his final triumph in Vienna.

Meanwhile, his wife Eleonore is go­ ing her own way. Tired of her husband’s constant infidelity, she has turned to Johann Friedel, a younger ensemble colleague, and leads the troupe with him. In 1788, the couple take over one of the most astonishing stages of the time in Vienna, integrated into a highly progressive residential complex. At the “Freihaus” outside the city (where Naschmarkt is located today), 225 apart­ ments are grouped around courtyards and gardens. From an inn to a school, from a pharmacist to a coffin maker, you can find everything here. The the­ atre people live alongside their audience.

Nevertheless, the leaseholder Friedel does not enjoy success – and dies just a year later. He leaves the theatre to his co-director, and she turns around and teams up with her husband again.

From then on, things steadily improve.

“I write for the audience’s enjoyment, I don’t pretend to be a scholar,” admits Schikaneder, “I’m an actor – I’m a direc­ tor – and I work for my money.”

Now he also writes for his own stage, and The Silly Gardener, with the

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THE MAGIC FLUTE MAKER

boss in the lead role, becomes the talk of the town. Singing, speaking and im­ provising, he caters to the Viennese love of buffoonery and offers a foretaste of Papageno: “a wife is the most wonderful thing in the world...” (Mozart composed his Variations KV 613 to this melody).

The Silly Gardener is also assisted by two ladies who will sing with him in The Magic Flute: Barbara Gerl, who later becomes Papagena, and Josepha Hofer, Mozart’s sister-in-law and later Queen of the Night.

Hofer’s contract with Schikaneder is one of the few surviving theatre con­ tracts from the day and reveals that the director not only ensures that re­ hearsal times and fees are appropriate but also pays attention to maintaining a good reputation. He demands “good economical performances”, “avoiding debt” and “intrigues” as well as “all disorder, quarrelling, brawling, fights, nocturnal parties, role jealousy and role disputes.” The “Don Juan of Wieden”, as his wife calls him – now probably more in amused resignation – is also a good paterfamilias who is good with money.

A reliable partner for someone who knows well what he is worth: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

These are two professionals who sit down together in 1791, who know what is in the wind, both in fashion and in politics. “Just look at me, I am a human being like you,” says the hermit Scherasmin to the knight Sir Hüon in Paul Wranitzky’s opera Oberon based on Wieland’s epic poem – a work that Schikaneder performed at Freihaus, and that Mozart saw in Frankfurt no later than 1790. “Who I am?” Papageno answers Prince Tamino: “Silly question!

A man like you!”

PREFERENCE FOR THE MIRACULOUS Amongst the Freemasons, democratic tendencies intersect with esoteric movements. Many Enlightenment phi­ losophers surrender to the magic. “The end of the 18th century is characterised by an almost unbelievable disposition of predilection for the miraculous,” as Mozart’s contemporary Henriette von Oberkirch described the mood of the time.

This penchant for the miraculous also dominates August Jacob Lieb­ eskind’s fairy tale Lulu or The Magic Flute, published by Wieland in 1778 and which Schikaneder draws on in the first act. Furthermore, Sarastro echoes the name of the Italian alche­ mist Cagliostro, who fascinated his contemporaries. At the same time, this figure reflects Ignaz von Born, a shin­ ing light of the Viennese Freemasons, who sees the priestly orders of ancient Egypt as the forerunner of the Enlight­ enment. Born also supports the Afri­ can Angelo Soliman, who rose from being a slave in Austria to become the emperor’s companion, and who every Viennese citizen thinks of when they see Monostatos in The Magic Flute. And since in summer 1791 the Frenchman Blanchard successfully and spectacu­ larly ascended over Vienna in a hot-air balloon, Schikaneder includes an “air­ craft” in the opera. The libretto writ­ ten by Schikaneder and modified only slightly in 50 places by Mozart accord­ ingly combines trends from the turn of the epoch with those of the day.

Meanwhile, the competition has not been idle. In June 1791, Kaspar the Bassoonist, or The Magic Zither is produced at the Leopoldstadt Theatre, another

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VOLKER HAGEDORN

suburban theatre. Mozart, who has al­ ready finished his first act, takes a look at it to be on the safe side, but concludes that “there is nothing to it” and contin­ ues to compose his unique collage rang­ ing from coloratura to chorale, comic number to sacred music. There is little evidence that that Schikaneder provided him with a summer house to work in or that Mozart spent nights there with ac­ tresses from The Magic Flute.

They are a well-rehearsed team even without extra-marital affairs. We have already mentioned Papagena and the Queen. Anna Gottlieb, who sang Pa­ mina, was Barbarina in the première of Figaro. Leopold Mozart wrote to his son about Benedikt Schak, who sang Tamino and was a discovery of Schikaneder’s: “this man sings truly beautifully.” The bass Franz Xaver Gerl, once a Salzburg choirboy, has al­ ready proved himself as Osmin in The Abduction from the Seraglio. Like Johann Josef Noseul, who plays Monostatos, he is part of Schikaneder’s artistic family and is now his Sarastro. We should not overlook the boss himself, who at the age of 40 plays the role of his life.

Shortly before the première, Mo­ zart writes one of his best instrumen­ tal pieces, the overture. On Friday, 30 September 1791 at 7 p.m. he gave the cue, and the curtain rose over the twelvemetre-wide stage, noisily, since in the absence of a pulley stagehands jumped down from the fly-space to act as coun­ terweights.

The Magic Flute was a triumph.

Not least for the former underdog and day labourer’s son, who kept the entire evening together and who had packed his whole life into Papageno: the min­ strels, the buffoon, all the clowns and silly gardeners, people who question

hierarchies as instinctively as they do cunningly.

Schikaneder also drew on his ex­ perience as a director and set designer.

“The theatre was transformed into two large mountains; in one there was a waterfall where you can hear rushing and roaring; the other spews fire; each mountain has a perforated grid where you can see fire and water.” Some en­ trances are precisely prescribed in the directions, with exact metre and ges­ ture, just as the success of the produc­ tion is precisely calculated. At 5,000 guilders – about around 150,000 euros in today’s money – it is, as biographer Eva Gesine Baur believes, the most ex­ pensive that Schikaneder has ever paid for. The investment pays off, the theatre is sold out every evening.

Mozart cannot enjoy it for long. He dies two months after the première. A golden decade begins for Schikaneder, culminating in 1801 with the construc­ tion of the new Theater an der Wien, which exists to this day, directly op­ posite the theatre, and the purchase of a small castle, which he has decorated with motifs from The Magic Flute.

WHEN HE DIES, ALL THAT REMAINS ARE A FEW BOOTS AND BOOKS – BUT IN THE WAY OF CASH: NOTHING. At the same time, however, the great theatre man is discredited. Anyone who puts on The Magic Flute – by 1794 there are 27 German theatres – rarely mentions the name of the librettist, whom one reviewer dismissed as a “miserable dramatic scribbler.” The impresario, who continued to make money with blockbusters such as Die Fiaker in Vienna, cannot be listed next

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THE MAGIC FLUTE MAKER

to Mozart, who has been elevated to the status of a god. The derogatory term “Schikanederei” emerges to describe show effects, stylistic inconsistencies, and distance from true art. Goethe starts a sequel to The Magic Flute, draw­ ing on everything that Schikaneder had devised, but he has the original rewrit­ ten for his court theatre.

There are no royalties anyway, works by the dead and the living alike are “open source.” In 1809, Napoleon’s French army plunders his little castle, his Theater an der Wien has long since been taken over, his style is out of fash­ ion, and his attempt to become manager of the city theatre in Brno fails. He has to sell his run-down property at a loss.

In 1811, controlled inflation, the “bank­ ruptcy patent,” causes all Austrian sav­ ings to shrink to a fifth of their value.

The 59-year-old, who is now “big and fat” and has “a waddling gait,” retreats with his wife to a small apart­ ment in Vienna’s Alsergrund district.

They are accompanied by a former the­ atre cashier and her ten-year-old son.

Schikaneder is his father. He hardly notices anything any longer. He dies, in a daze, a few weeks after his 61st birth­ day. While The Magic Flute was already part of the repertoire throughout Eu­ rope, an official of the court listed the assets of its author. A few clothes, boots, “old reading books,” “no cash at all.”

This is in keeping with his reputation in posterity, which few have countered to this day, including the likes of He­ gel and Schopenhauer. Or Theodor W. Adorno, who wrote about The Magic Flute that the “resilience of the preco­ cious text, which is vilified as poor,” proves itself to be “on the border be­ tween banality and inscrutable melan­ choly.”

This is the border along which Mo­ zart also moves with the greatest of relish. On 8 October 1791, a week af­ ter the première, he does not conduct himself, but goes behind the scenes in the second act. Papageno-Schikaneder is singing his aria “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen” with a glockenspiel in his hand, which he pretends to play while a musician plays the notes. On the spur of the moment, Mozart takes over his part, “because today I felt such an urge to play it myself.” But where he should have played an arpeggio, he omits it and looks at Schikaneder. With a side­ long glance, Schikaneder realises who is pulling one over on him, pauses, lowers the glockenspiel, precisely at that moment Mozart plays his chord.

Schikaneder reacts like a practised showman: he strikes his instrument and shouts “Shut up!“ Great roars of laughter. Great, small theatre. The two are still together today, inseparable. On the stage.

Following pages: SERENA SÁENZ as QUEEN OF THE NIGHT JULIAN PRÉGARDIEN as TAMINO

17

SLAVKA ZÁMEČNÍKOVÁ as PAMINA LUDWIG MITTELHAMMER as PAPAGENO

ADELE BERNHARD

“A WOMAN

DOES LITTLE, BABBLES A LOT” MOZART’S THE MAGIC FLUTE

AND POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

The Magic Flute is a curious work. On the one hand, thanks to its fairy-tale plot, its humanistic message and, of course, its inspiring music, it is con­ sidered the perfect opera for beginners and children. On the other hand, there is hardly a work in German-language opera literature that has aged worse (apart from the chauvinistic excesses of Richard Wagner).

On closer inspection, the plot quickly turns out to be quite misogynis­ tic. The Queen of the Night is a woman who is robbed of her inheritance be­ cause a man is supposedly much better at managing it than she is; a woman whose child is kidnapped because she does not want to submit meekly to this decision. “Your duty is to leave yourself and your daughter to the guidance of wise men,” the Queen quotes her de­ ceased husband (The Magic Flute, act 2, Scene 8). Is this woman supposed to be at fault and the villain of the opera?

In addition, there is hardly anyone in the male cast of the opera who does not make sexist comments. The wise King Sarastro explains to Pamina: “a

man must guide your hearts, because without him every woman tends to step out of her domain” (I, 18). And Tamino, the youthful hero of the opera, also quickly dismisses the Queen’s com­ plaints with the words: “she is a woman, with the mind of a woman!” (II, 5). In the year of the première of The Magic Flute, 1791, all of this may have seemed amusing to the audience, but today it must be disconcerting when such com­ ments are made on stage without irony and without contradiction.

As a result, many theatres today are making more or less significant changes to the text of The Magic Flute in order to at least defuse the most discrimina­ tory passages. Most efforts to update the opera and make it acceptable to a more sensitive audience, in both traditional and modern productions, focus not only on the ever-present, almost plotdriven sexism of this opera, but also on another, urgent problem: Monostatos.

The libretto describes this charac­ ter as a “Moor”, which is considered outdated and even discriminatory by some. Monostatos also represents be­

20

“A WO M A N D O E S L I T T L E , B A B B L E S A L O T ”

liefs prevalent at the time when The Magic Flute was written. For example, when Monostatos sees the sleeping Pa­ mina, Schikaneder has him say: “and what kind of person, even one from a milder climate, would remain cold and unmoved at such a sight?” (II, 7).

In other words: even someone who is not a “hot-blooded” African, but who comes from a milder climate, must be “inflamed” by the beauty of this young woman. In the broadest sense, the cli­ mate theory of the French philosopher Charles de Montesquieu is quoted here.

Based on experiments with sheep’s tongues, he came to the conclusion that temperature differences affect the ex­ citability of nerve endings, from which he concluded that hot temperatures “stimulate the imagination and libido.”

This is not a racist concept from the 19th century, but one that, despite all Mon­ tesquieu’s thoughtfulness, still leads to the romanticisation or demonisation of foreign cultures.

And so today, with our different level of knowledge and research, the character of Monostatos is regarded as fraught with racist prejudices. For a long time, it was also common to have Monostatos portrayed by a singer of a different colour wearing dark make-up.

This practice is also considered too controversial today – mainly due to association with the style of so-called “blackface” – so that most opera houses refrain from portraying Monostatos as a “person of colour” in order not to compound stereotypes. Even in Isa­ bella Gregor’s version of the text, which forms the basis for the new production of The Magic Flute at the Vienna State Opera, Monostatos is not black; the relevant libretto passages have been changed. For example, “But I must avoid

love because a black person is ugly” (II, 13) becomes “... because someone is so ugly,” and “the evil Moor” (I, 18) be­ comes “the evil person.”

The team of the Critical Classics ini­ tiative, which, according to the project’s website, is committed to “opera without victims” and thus to what it considers contemporary and non-discriminatory performance practice, goes one step fur­ ther in a new version of The Magic Flute to be published in 2024: Monostatos is not only not black, he is also Sarastro’s illegitimate son, to whom the conser­ vative ruler denies inheritance and recog­nition. In this version, Monos­ tatos is accordingly introduced by the other slaves as “Sarastro’s secret child” (I, 9), and instead of accusing Monos­ tatos of having a “soul as black as your face,” Sarastro now declares that he will never let his son share in his inheritance (II, 11). Thus, the suspicion of racism is avoided in two ways: firstly, with the absence of black skin, and secondly, with a new explanation for Monostatos’ behaviour, especially towards Pamina.

Sarastro’s illegitimate son is after Prin­ cess Pamina with a view to obtaining an inheritance and power through his relationship with her – not because he finds the white woman so attractive.

Critical Classics justifies these ex­ tensive changes to the text and plot of The Magic Flute by saying that the omission of problematic content in the libretto or in the depiction of the char­ acters without substitution would not do justice to the artistic standards of the work and its composer, and this is why they are trying to “work out solutions in the spirit of the work.” And so in the new version by Critical Classics, the misogynistic passages of The Magic Flute have also been significantly

21

ADELE BERNHARD

changed. While Pamina’s initiation into the clerical community is not explicitly envisaged in the original, in Critical Classics it is part of Sarastro’s plan from the very beginning. At the beginning of act 2, when Tamino’s trials begin, he announces: “the gods have chosen the clever, virtuous girl, like the fair youth, to undergo difficult trials” (II, 1). In the following, it becomes clear again and again that Tamino is not facing the tri­ als alone: the Boys announce the vic­ tory of the “wise couple”, not that of the “wise man” (II, 26).

What is of course lost in this new version is the emancipation of Pam­ ina, who in the original text decides to complete the last trial at Tamino’s side (II, 28) and thus stands up as a strong female figure against the sexism of the priestly community. The Critical Clas­ sics version of The Magic Flute is set in a world in which injustice still exists, but racism and misogyny and discrimina­ tion against women do not exist. Here, the Queen of the Night is not disinher­ ited because of sexist prejudices, but be­ cause her husband simply does not con­ sider her competent enough to manage the sevenfold circle of the sun (II, 8).

Thus, most of the sexist comments interspersed throughout the Critical Classics version also disappear. Much of what is formulated in the original libretto as a general statement about women is specifically tailored to the Queen of the Night. For example, in­ stead of “So, a woman has seduced you?

A woman does little, but babbles a lot,“ it says: “has she already seduced you too? She lies, sows discord, does a lot of harm” (I,8). Not all women are unreli­ able, but this one is. Furthermore, in the new version, Sarastro says to Pamina of her mother: “Vengeance must not guide

her heart,” instead of implying, as the original does, that female hearts gener­ ally require the guidance of a man (I,18).

Finally, all the passages in which masculinity is equated with strength and virtue have been changed in the Critical Classics version: for example, in the original text, Tamino receives the instruction from the Three Boys: “Remember this: in short, be a man.

Then, young man, you will win like a man.” In Critical Classics, by contrast, the three sing: “Prove yourself, always remember, THEN, young man, you will ultimately win” (I,15), the speaker no longer praises Tamino’s “steadfast, manly behaviour” (II,6), but only his “steadfast behaviour” (II,6).

Is this still The Magic Flute as Mo­ zart and Schikaneder conceived it in the late 18th century? Their Magic Flute is a work in which characters are given outdated views of “people of colour,” in which women are spoken of disparag­ ingly and virtue is equated with mascu­ linity. If you completely omit all of that and overwrite it with a new narrative that is as politically correct as possible, don’t you also deprive production team and audience alike of the opportunity to critically engage with the work and its problematic content? The opportunity, then, to consider for yourself how all of this could be interpreted – really as con­ firmation of these prejudices? Or maybe critically or even ironically-satirically?

There is no one right solution when dealing with problematic texts. Critical Classics also only makes a suggestion with their version and gives theatres the freedom to use the entire text or just parts of it for their productions. The version of The Magic Flute that Isabella Gregor has prepared for the Vienna State Opera is not based at any point

22

“A WO M A N D O E S L I T T L E , B A B B L E S A L O T ”

on the changes suggested by Critical Classics and is only partially conceived with a view to language and plot that are as non-discriminatory as possible.

Although extensive cuts and reformula­ tions of the spoken text have eliminated some particularly sensitive passages, the sung text remains unchanged ex­ cept for a few passages.

Much of what Critical Classics criti­ cizes remains intact: from Sarastro’s “A man must guide your hearts” to the duet “Beware of women’s tricks.” Numerous statements are not commented on in the text. The only objection comes from the Queen of the Night. Without quoting the relevant statement of her deceased husband, she explains to Pamina: “a fe­ male soul does not have to surrender to the guidance of ‘wise men’!”

Does this make the new production of The Magic Flute problematic, politi­ cally incorrect and completely unac­

ceptable anyway? Of course not. When the speaker says, “A woman does little, chatters a lot,” it is clear from the stag­ ing that this statement applies mostly to himself, and the priests and their “feminine tricks” cannot necessarily be taken seriously either. And even if every sexist saying were pronounced with conviction and full authority: even in The Magic Flute, perhaps especially in this piece that is so accessible and yet so enigmatic and complex, problematic characters must also be allowed to ap­ pear and have their say.

As important as the food for thought that Critical Classics provides with re­ gard to sensitive language on the opera stage is, it is also very valuable to criti­ cally engage in art with things that are fortunately no longer acceptable in life today – and with which we are never­ theless still confronted, perhaps even to an increasing extent.

23

Following pages: LUDWIG MITTELHAMMER as PAPAGENO MEMBERS OF THE VIENNA STATE OPERA as THE THREE BOYS

GERNOT GRUBER

POWER & MUSIC Is music the counterpoise to the au­ thorities exercising power in the Magic Flute? Before trying to answer this question, it is necessary to look at the authorities exercising power them­ selves. As a pair of rivals, the Queen of the Night and Sarastro have power.

However, it is difficult to judge which authority they represent, as in both the libretto and Mozart’s music they appear with an aura of reality, but they are in­ herently ambivalent and vague. Inter­ pretations vary accordingly. There is not even a consensus on a Manichæan dualism. The Queen of the Night is con­ ventionally the cunning wicked woman who toys with emotions and tries to involve Pamina and Tamino (with Pa­ pageno as an incidental victim) in her intrigue against Sarastro.

Admittedly, her first aria, “I am con­ demned to grief”, poses musical prob­ lems. While the Queen is fighting for her power of the night, is she perhaps also a suffering wife whose daughter was in fact abducted? Sarastro is also no longer just the embodiment of good.

Many current productions show him at least as an ambivalent figure, if not as a loving despot. Even if he is still seen fa­ vourably, for example by an expert like Jean Starovinski, there is still ambiv­ alence, even here, between a theocrat, imposing a higher power through his personal will, and an officiant, serving

“eternal and impersonal entities – light, wisdom, virtue, harmony etc.”

Is there a legitimate power? If it is present symbolically in the Magic Flute, then it would most likely be in the char­ acter of Tamino, according to the (no longer current) status of the history of interpretation. The virtues lauded in the final chorus of fortitude, beauty and wisdom enabled Tamino to succeed on the path set for him. His success leads him to power, not only over himself but also over others. Which domain he is to rule over, Sarastro’s or his father’s (he appears in the action as a “prince” of a foreign country), is not settled. The story does not cover this, it stops at the moment of the change from darkness to light – “You have penetrated the dark­ ness.” However, the final chorus does not talk of “crowns” or “crown”, or mention any princehood, or even Tamino at all.

The welcome is general, and in­ cludes Pamina in any case. The deliber­ ate refusal to identify more closely the explanatory (and originally biblical) metaphor of light (Sarastro’s “The rays of the sun chase away the night”) as a status that has been achieved also leave unresolved the attempted inclusion of the “initiates” into the world of Sarastro and his priests, or the Freemasons (the three virtues named in the final chorus are a Masonic quote). However, this lack of resolution leaves consideration of the

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POWER & MUSIC

symbolism relying on the action again in the critical phase of the testing. This is the only starting point to get more infor­ mation on the intended nature of “light” and “power.”

Clearly, it is not only Tamino’s strength and willpower which make possible the transition through fire and water with Pamina. So let us take a closer look at this part of the action: the scene of the last test begins in a way which is very unusual in terms of the conventions of music theatre. What is presented is a mysterious sphere which combines three elements: the ombra scene in the history of Italian opera, the visual impact of a dungeon fantasy reminiscent of Piran­ esi, and the musical impact of a figured choral (the Armed Men, “He who travels these laborious paths will be purified by fire, water, air and earth”), whose anti­ quated effect prompted the mention of Mozart’s image of Bach.

These elements give the epigraphic and remote attitude of the two armed men its particular spontaneously un­ derstandable aura. The subsequent development through to the passage through fire and water leads to action which is clearly not conventional in the initiations in Sarastro’s priestly world (nor among Freemasons). Pamina is taken to Tamino by the Three Boys who prevented her suicide (“Come, let’s go and find him”), and not by Sarastro’s priests. Although it says directly before the reunion of the couple “A woman who does not fear darkness and death is worthy and will be made initiate”, the subsequent action goes well beyond the guarantee of an initiation expressed here, because Pamina becomes active.

She is the one who remembers and retells the story of the origin of the flute in the moment of danger and brack­

ets the memory between the two calls “Play on your magic flute; it will protect us on our way” and “Come, now, and play the flute! It will guide us on the dreaded path.” This is an emphatic call to Tamino to act.

What happens musically then is extremely unusual (a fact which has frequently been mentioned in the liter­ ature on Mozart). The conventional re­ sponse to the dramatic situation would have been music for a storm (with full orchestra, tremolos, fast runs, dynamic contrasts, diminished sevenths etc).

Schikaneder’s directions in the libretto also expected acoustic illustrations of the scene: “There’s the crackle of fire and howl of the wind, sometimes the sound of quiet thunder and rushing water.” Mozart’s completely different approach is mostly explained by refer­ ences to the power of harmony.

The Orpheus myth resonates more than once at earlier points in the Magic Flute, not only with Tamino but also with Papageno. Edward Dent, Bern­ hard Paumgartner and others have also pointed to a place in John Milton’s Paradise Lost noting the power of the pipes to overcome the fear of death. However, Mozart’s score goes much further. The mysterious atmosphere of the last test is present throughout in the music, al­ though it does not the action in detail.

Since Monteverdi’s Orfeo, low brass tones and timpani have been part of the language of solemnity, ceremony and mystery. Mozart uses these very spar­ ingly and casually (the usual sustained tones are completely absent).

Bracketed in this way, the flute mel­ ody Tamino played (see figure) is the actual symbol. Something which is striking about this is that the first four bars can be reduced to a core melody

27

GERNOT GRUBER

consisting of a rising triad followed by a descending scale, which is brought twice to the tonic, first in the two initial bars, and then to dominant (C major) in the next two bars. Mozart first set this core melody in C minor to Tamino’s “Help me! Oh, help me!” at the start of the introduction to act 1, then in E flat major to the Three Boys’ “Two hearts aflame with love can never be parted by human weakness” (second finale, bars 146 et seq,) and in C major to Pamina’s first call, “play on your magic flute!”

Anther striking feature is that Mo­ zart did not compose any simple can­ tability or simple, sincere melody for instrumental use in the interest of sen­ sitivity (on the various lines of German singspiel, with alternating music and dialogue, as found even in Goethe).

Instead, as carefully noted in the auto­ graph score, he demands a highly differ­ entiated articulation from the flautist.

The style of the flute part is very relaxed, and the core melody is ornamented with a lot of little runs and decorations. There is also a clear development, starting with a familiar melody and periodic struc­ ture, and leading to its breakdown into smaller and smaller sections without motivistic reference (see figure for flute, II, 28, bars 378-387).

However, Mozart introduces a measure of musical improvisation into this highly stylised form. Tamino takes up a famil­ iar melody heard shortly before from Pamina and continues it more and more loosely. This musical image is a symbol of spontaneous action. What it demon­ strates is less the significance of a mel­ ody than overcoming the awareness of an open horizon. What Tamino achieves for an instant through improvisation (and what repeats as a stabilised symbol for the passage through water) is a uni­ fication of individual music and “pure” music (in the music for its own sake of the otherwise merely decorative little runs, ornaments, repetitions and articu­ latory nuances). The final “triumph” cho­ rus repeats the rising triad in its restored unambiguity, which is at the same time lacking in imagination.

The testing scene accordingly gives an exemplary answer to our initial ques­ tion. It can certainly be said that the improvisational structure of the flute melody significantly affects key ele­ ments of the concept of Enlightenment.

It represents the deliberate spontaneity which seeks to overcome the thought and action of closed systems. And this is why the (to a certain extent) unresolved ending of the opera takes on an inher­

28

POWER & MUSIC

ently deeper meaning, as a focus on the transformation. However, the example does not give any formula for the right story. Papageno and Papagena are right in their own way in dreaming of the blessings of children in their final scene.

The exemplary nature of the change as shown rules out abstract questions like “Is there legitimate power?”

It does, however, leave the question of the function of the music. Bearing in mind the constellation of the testing scene, it has to be said that the first and all subsequent moves to overcome the male aristocracy come from Pamina, who first deals with her own rage and despair in the awareness of her love, and then gives a direction to Tamino’s fury which ultimately remains unforeseeable, even if Sarastro (from what point in the action?) may have planned the reunion of the duo in his interest. But this leaves Above:

THE TRANSITION FROM THE FIRE TO WATER TEST IN MOZART’S AUTOGRAPH

the constellation dominated by men, as the libretto intends. While Pamina takes the initiative (“I myself shall lead you – Love is my guide”), Tamino is the one who takes the lead, playing the flute, and Pamina is the one emphasising the magic power of the flute and suggesting this to Tamino. Pamina’s contribution through the actual passage of fire and water is far from enlightening – to the contrary, Mozart’s music alone takes us beyond the libretto statements.

Mozart was not concerned with either separating magic from human moral­ity and social manners or setting mascu­ line against feminine. His emphasis in the action certainly involves the magical and the resulting significance, but it lets Tamino’s improvisations go their own way. Music accordingly does not appear as the counterpoise to the existing pow­ ers – its power is the power of change.

29

B A R B OR A HOR Á KOVÁ

THE MULTIPLE

ENDINGS OF THE MAGIC FLUTE The opera is called The Magic Flute. To me, that means it must be magic and there must be a flute. The sound of the flute, which is repeatedly heard in a solo role during the piece, is primeval. The flute is perhaps the oldest instrument we have, that has evolved due to the cu­ riosity inherent in us. Perhaps there was a bone which had a hole in it, and made a sound when it was blown through.

And then there was another hole, which sounded different. And this sound had an effect on the people listening. This sound, this art, this music, this some­ thing we have invented, leads us back to ourselves. To the fact that there are both good and evil people, but the good can perhaps triumph in a certain harmony.

The surprising thing is that The Magic Flute was a hit from the start, be­ cause it is so accessible. And because the dialogue is not so hermetically sealed as in other operas, making it accessible to all. And everyone knows the melodies of more than one aria – and everyone can sing along with all the numbers in The Magic Flute. It sounds so simple, but if you look at the orchestral score, you discover how incredibly complex its structure is, what nuances there are in the chords, and why a particular chord is placed where it is. And if you really want to understand it all, there’s no end to it.! It’s a job for a lifetime. That’s the

great thing about it – the piece makes us rack our brains over it. But ultimately it’s accessible to all, and everyone can identify with it, at least to some extent.

IMAGERY AND MEANING If we start to think about the Magic Flute, the deeper we look, the more confused we get, and the less we under­ stand. Something I find so incredible is the multiple points of view the piece offers. Should we focus on the symbolic aspects, or the historical context? Is the opera really a comedy, or is it just a fairy tale? Is it all supposed to make sense, or not?

We do know that fairy tales always have major philosophical and symbolic content. You can say things, for exam­ ple about political systems, which you aren’t always allowed to say out loud, but only behind a fairy tale veil or mask.

The Queen of the Night is the suffering mother at first, before becoming the evil creature intent on harming humanity.

However, if we look at her history, we see what traumas are at work in this character – the wrong done to her, what was taken from her that she can­ not come to terms with, as so often the case with ongoing traumas people can­ not shut down. This leads to unending conflict, as for example in Palestine and

30

THE MULTIPLE ENDINGS OF THE MAGIC FLUTE

Israel. If you can think of it all in global terms, it goes round and round in your head.

The same goes for Sarastro and his macho followers: he is initially a dicta­ tor, with everything under control, very cunning and knowing exactly what to do. But then he becomes increasingly hu­ man. As a woman, I’m initially horrified by this hierarchy and the elitism, which has no place for women. But by the end, I’m thinking that perhaps the man means well somehow, even if he’s going at things completely the wrong way. Per­ haps he understands that wisdom and reason should not be abused to keep hold of power. And perhaps this makes him a bit more feminine and gentle.

GROWING OLDER TOGETHER – AND GREATER I always think The Magic Flute has mul­ tiple endings. There’s one ending as it is in the fairy tale, where the two leading characters have passed a test. But you can’t be too sure, was that really the test? Was it the end of the test? When did the test start? What were the earlier tests? Why is Pamina only involved in these tests at the end? And then you realise, she was actually always part of the test! Because when Tamino is abducted, she is already there! Who is actually being tested here?

This is where her test starts, because she has to accept that someone might die. Like the Ukrainian mothers, wives, sisters, lovers, who have to accept that their men are going to war. And that is the test. The eternal fear and uncer­ tainty of losing a loved one. And this is why I’ve moved the trio of Pamina, Tamino and Sarastro “shall I, beloved,

never see you again?” from the end of act 2 to the start of the act. When we start with this, we see that she is also being tested. And then there’s another test, the test of silence. Tamino is no longer talking to her, but she still must not lose hope. And then she actually goes physically with him through fire and flood. This piece, which seems mi­ sogynistic on first reading, has a protag­ onist, Pamina, who actually is the one who holds it all together.

And this is why I also want the two of them to age in the piece. So that we learn that while we are there to try and understand things, we may not under­ stand anything by the end – but we stay together. This is about the proof of love, to have and hold for better and worse, in sickness and health. This is why Pamina and Tamino have the puppets of older people. Then the puppets are gone, and the couple are still there, and they start all over again. You never stop learning. That is one ending.

And then there’s another ending.

There, we learn about Papageno’s good fortune, which has led him to a loved one. We live in a couple-oriented soci­ ety. We need to feel and give love. Even a bird catcher can’t bear to be alone and is actually longing for someone else. He realises this very early on in a duet for Pamina, which for me has the whole philosophy of the world in it. “Man and wife, and wife and man, together are di­ vine” – and it doesn’t matter if it’s wife and wife or man and man, being to­ gether with someone makes you bigger, you can grow beyond your own bound­ aries in a way you can’t if you’re alone.

As a bird catcher or bird man, Papa­ geno is a fairy tale character, and at the same time the most human character in the piece. He reveals that people

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THE MULTIPLE ENDINGS OF THE MAGIC FLUTE

have flaws, and that the system in us doesn’t always work properly. He says very clearly that sometimes it’s better to sit in the pub and enjoy yourself with friends and not have to understand the world with all its horrors. Which natu­ rally does not mean that he is unaware of them. Papageno is very sad at the beginning. He catches live birds that he delivers to the Queen, knowing that they won’t live for long. But this is his job. And he is someone who is incred­ ibly lonely.

A third ending is with Monostatos, the Queen and the Three Ladies, who try for something like an evil ending.

However, the evil is so caricatured that you really can’t take it seriously. For me, it’s as if the characters are no longer the characters they were but are simply there to remind us not to forget about evil. There is such a thing as evil, but if we stick together, we can defeat it. And if I think about the children who will be watching, I’d like them to laugh at this.

PURE HUMANITY And then there is the ultimate ending, the very short triumphant ending when everyone comes together. It abandons the fairy tale for pure humanity, which has been hinted at in the “sacred halls.”

We see people in everyday personal clothing come onto the stage and hug a Pamina who is still in costume. In the Magic Flute you find contrasts between light and dark, life and death, major and

minor. You are in one world, and then suddenly in a different one. This magic is what’s so good in The Magic Flute. It’s also the illogical aspect. I play with the illogical as well. First, we are in a space which seems primeval, and then it is suddenly filled with life when Sarastro arrives, and it’s as if the space is shining with the glamour that filled it a century earlier.

At the end, when Pamina wants to kill herself and the Three Boys are try­ ing to stop her, the space is a snow-cov­ ered ruin – and ultimately, there is no space left. We are in the here and now, and we hear and sing in the way that people sang in the twenties. Let us try to simply be present and make music, per­ haps open our hearts, and go out from the opera as better people. I don’t know.

This is naturally very high minded, and I really don’t want to preach.

I believe that I’m a very emotional person. I always try to understand things through my emotions. I have ex­ perienced much, due to my origin and my family history. But I’ve been for­ tunate in that, despite the totalitarian systems, I’ve always felt this love in my family. What I’ve felt is that you should never stop trying to believe in people.

That people can do good things. That you should never stop believing. This has made a great impression on me.

This is why none of the many stories this opera tells are unbelievable for me.

I think all of this could really happen.

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LUDWIG MITTELHAMMER

as PAPAGENO ILJA STAPLE as PAPAGENA

OLIVER LÁNG

SPOTLIGHT ON THE MAGIC FLUTE Naturally it is a hot topic: Vienna’s foremost opera house is due to open, a magnificent building on the new Ring­ strasse, light, spacious, opulent, people are – for the most part – thrilled; even the opening date seems to have been set, but ... one detail is still missing. Namely: what will the opening work be? Which opera should be performed for the open­ ing? What work is big enough, famous, profound and complex enough to open this new chapter in Viennese opera his­ tory? Beethoven’s Fidelio would be a good choice, or undoubtedly a Mozart.

Or perhaps something by Verdi?

Perhaps even, recalling earlier, delir­ ious enthusiasm on the part of Vien­ nese audiences: a work by Rossini? In the run-up to the opening of the new Vienna Court Opera in May 1869, this was exactly the topic of discussion, and very public discussion too. By today’s standards, it was surprisingly late, as it was well into the spring of 1869. Three operas were mentioned in particular: Mozart’s Don Giovanni, as the master­ piece that was considered to be perfect

in the 19th century. Suggestion number two: The Magic Flute, which premièred in Vienna.

And number three, because of its lav­ ish and attractive scenic design: Chris­ toph Willibald Gluck’s Armide. The Vi­ enna-based columnist Ludwig Speidel, for example, blew his journalistic horn loudly in the semi-official Fremdenblatt newspaper: The Magic Flute must be the opening work, a work created in Vienna, because, according to Spei­ del: “In all musical literature there is no dramatic work that belongs so uniquely and intimately to the city of Vienna as The Magic Flute.” He was not alone in his opinion; a short time later, the Neue Freie Presse even devoted an editorial to the subject. But things turned out differ­ ently. The decision on the opening piece ultimately came down in favour of Don Giovanni; The Magic Flute was not per­ formed at the new opera house until a few months later.

The fact that The Magic Flute at least visually left its mark on the opera house when it opened in 1869 is still evident

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SPOTLIGHT ON THE MAGIC FLUTE

today everywhere you look in the state rooms. In the Schwind Foyer, it is the subject of the central lunette painting above Mozart’s bust; the frescoes in the Schwind loggia are dedicated to a large Magic Flute cycle.

But what do the statistics tell us?

Did The Magic Flute become a key work for the opera house on the Ring? Or even the most frequently performed opera in its 155-year history? Almost.

Beet­hoven’s Fidelio, for example, played a more important role as the work re-opening the house in 1955. And the most frequently performed work at the Vienna State Opera is Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, but with more than 1,300 performances, The Magic Flute is a close second. The Magic Flute has been used time and again for special occa­ sions: one of its arias had the honour of being heard at an acoustic rehearsal in the not-yet-open house on the Ring.

On 12 November 1919, The Magic Flute was performed to “celebrate the anniversary of the Republic”; it was often performed for the Trade Union Federation or the Theater der Jugend; it was performed at a benefit for the United Nations children’s relief appeal; the opera was presented in 1962 by the Vienna State Opera for the reopen­ ing of the Theater an der Wien. It has been performed on official occasions and state visits, such as in 1960 when Khrushchev visited. It has toured with the house’s ensemble. And every year, on the day after the Opera Ball in the Great Hall, for many of the 7,000 young people attending attend a children’s version of the work it is their first en­ counter with the wonder of opera. In fact, since 1869 there has hardly been a single year in which the Vienna State Opera has not performed this work.

But how can one best tell such a rich history of a work? The best way is to highlight the numerous new produc­ tions in the last 150 years. The first was at the opening of the season on 1 Sep­ tember 1869, for which the painter Josef Hoffmann designed the stage sets and costumes. And he surprised his audi­ ence and overwhelmed many critics with meticulously designed decorations in a style reminiscent of ancient Egypt.

But to allow his ideas to be properly appreciated, brochures with the artist’s explanations of his stage design were handed out before the performances.

“In fact, people now go to the new opera house not to hear The Magic Flute and see its magnificent décor, but to study Egypt, ethnographically, botanically and philologically,” quipped the Neue Freie Presse, while at the same time praising the artist’s “in-depth under­ standing.” What was significant, how­ ever, was that the stage design was now at a turning point: sets that could be interchanged and reused between pro­ ductions were no longer used here (such as: “a forest”, “a temple”, “a rocky area”), but an aesthetic developed specifically for this production was offered.

In exactly this production, almost 30 years later, on 29 May 1897, another turning point occurred: two weeks after his sensational début at the Court Opera with Wagner’s Lohengrin, the conductor Gustav Mahler conducted his first Mozart in the house on the Ring. “Thanks to dynamic nuances, well-placed climaxes and absolute clar­ ity, almost every number revealed new and appealing details, with a concept that was not only interesting but also thoroughly Mozartian; without submit­ ting to the temptation of focussing on effects, Mahler did not shy away from

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OLIVER LÁNG

them, especially where they emerged from the contrast,” the Neue Wiener Journal wrote. It was clear that a new era of interpretation was beginning, especially where Mozart style was con­ cerned.

This style culminated in a festi­ val-like Mozart cycle in 1905/06, as part of which The Magic Flute was also produced – the set, which had been in use since 1869, was revised by Alfred Roller. In the spirit of a total work of art of the highest standard, sound, im­ age, acting and light were to flow into one another. “Director Mahler’s love of Mozart is most heartfelt in The Magic Flute, it brings this whole incomprehen­ sible wealth of naive, solemn, heartfelt, fantastic sounds to life,” said the critic Julius Korngold.

The Magic Flute remained a top pri­ ority for the next two premières as well.

The première in 1924 was conducted

by Franz Schalk, with Clemens Krauss taking over in 1933; the production was led by the great Lothar Wallerstein, who conceived the work with fairy-tale elements, full of drifting blossoms and a fantasy setting; he also made some changes to the text. In 1941, in the midst of the Nazi era, which appropriated Mo­ zart for its racist ideology, Hans Knap­ pertsbusch conducted a Magic Flute première (mise-en-scène by Gustav Gründgens).

The years after the Second World War were the era of the legendary “Vienna Mozart Ensemble” and thus also a special Magic Flute era. The première in 1948, conducted by Josef Krips in the temporary quarters of the Theater an der Wien (the Vienna State Opera was severely dam­ aged in the war and only reopened in 1955), was not only a celebration,

but also heralded a series of around 250 performances through 1957 – there were 44 performances in the first year alone!

“The unity and purity of this Mo­ zart style is delightful... This is primar­ ily thanks to Josef Krips, whose excel­ lent musical direction is the spirited and sensitive artistic conscience of the performance,” the Wiener Kurier news­ paper wrote. It is “the Austrian, the Viennese touch that gives The Magic Flute its true splendour and makes the work so appealing to us,” wrote the Neue Österreich. And: “Isn’t The Magic Flute itself a symbol of the Austrian soul?” Ten years later, it was Krips again who directed the next première, this time once again at the opera house on the Ring. Directed by Günther Rennert (set and costumes: Georges Wakhévitsch), a first-rate cast sang and acted, besides Irmgard Seefried as Pamina, Erika Köth as the Queen of the Night, Erich Kunz as Papageno (he sang this role nearly 250 times dur­ ing his career at the State Opera), and Anton Dermota as Tamino, also ap­ pearing were Eberhard Waechter as the Speaker, and Christa Ludwig as the Second Lady.

The next premières were worlds apart musically: in 1962 it was Herbert von Karajan who took over the musical direction at the Theater an der Wien on the occasion of the opening of the renovated house. In 1974 Christoph von Dohnányi took over at the opera house on the Ring and in 1988 Nikolaus Har­ noncourt, who had made his house début the year before with the première of Mozart’s Idomeneo. Karajan in 1962: “fascinating as always”, but with a “certain lack of warmth”, according to reviews of the première. Harnoncourt’s

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SPOTLIGHT ON THE MAGIC FLUTE

view, in turn, once again marked a turning point: fierce pro and con voices were already wrangling acoustically with each other during the interval, and critics were also divided.

One thing was clear: a new era of musical interpretation had dawned at the State Opera. At the next première in 2000, in Roger Norrington the work again had a conductor who drew on historically informed performance practice. Marco Arturo Marelli’s pro­ duction, which emphasised the contrast between the world of Sarastro and that of the Queen of the Night, was followed in 2013 by directorial work by the team of Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier.

On a bare stage, an attempt was made to return to some of the elements of suburban theatre. The new production in 2025 conjures up a completely dif­ ferent world. Making her house début, Barbora Horáková shifts the action to a “haunted house”, in which a journey of all those involved narrated in detail is experienced in a variety of rooms.

As première conductor, Bertrand de Billy stepped in for the former General Music Director of the Vienna State Opera, Franz Welser-Möst, in the middle of the rehearsal period and led a young ensemble of singers, some of whose members were making their house début on opening night.

37

GEORG ZEPPENFELD

as SARASTRO SERENA SÁENZ as QUEEN OF THE NIGHT

IMPRINT WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE SEASON 2024/25 PREMIÈRE OF THE PRODUCTION 27 JANUARY 2025 Publisher WIENER STAATSOPER GMBH, Opernring 2, 1010 Wien Director DR. BOGDAN ROŠČIĆ Music Director PHILIPPE JORDAN Administrative Director DR. PETRA BOHUSLAV General Editors SERGIO MORABITO, ANDREAS LÁNG, OLIVER LÁNG, ADELE BERNHARD Design & concept EXEX Layout & typesetting MIWA MEUSBURGER Printed by PRINT ALLIANCE HAV PRODUKTIONS GMBH, BAD VÖSLAU TEXT & IMAGE REFERENCES All texts were taken from Die Zauberflöte programme of the Vienna State Opera, 2025. IMAGE REFERENCES Cover image: Shutterstock. Cover image concept: Martin Conrads, Berlin; page 29: AKG Images. Performance photos: Michael Pöhn/Wiener Staatsoper GmbH. The English translation is by Andrew Smith.

Reproduction only with approval of Wiener Staatsoper GmbH / Dramaturgy. Holders of rights who were unavailable regarding retrospect compensation are requested to make contact.

This production is sponsored by Printed according to the guidelines of the Austrian Ecolabel “Printed Products”, Print Alliance HAV Produktions GmbH, Bad Vöslau, UW-No. 715

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