Goshen
College Opera
Presents:
by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Performances took place:
February 19-22, 1998
Goshen College Umble Center
About the Opera
Composer
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
1756 - 1791
Mozart's Magic Flute has been the subject of exceptionally diverse aesthetic judgments. Some consider it an almost divine last will and testament of a dying composer, while others complain about its inconsistencies in plot and pandering to popular taste. The truth seems to lie somewhere in between and it is just such a middle ground that was always the most fertile for Mozart's musical imagination. This middle ground is the special provenance of music, a mode of expression both less exact than language when speaking of our objective life and more precise than language when speaking to our subjective experiences.
Work on The Magic Flute commenced during the spring of 1791 at the suggestion of Mozart's friend Emanuel Schikaneder. Schikaneder asked Mozart to, "Write an opera for me, entirely in the taste of the present Viennese public ... but see to it that you cater primarily to the lowest common denominator of all classes." Such an assignment must have been all too familiar to Mozart. During his ten years in Vienna the only music Mozart composed under court patronage were dances for an annual series of masked balls held in the Imperial palace.
What Mozart found in Schikaneder's libretto is an allegory that operates on three different levels: (1) a fairy tale of two young people separated from their families and making their way along the psychological path toward individuation, (2) a thinly veiled depiction of the rules and rites of 18th Century Freemasonry, and (3) a spiritually compelling account of the search for love and enlightenment. Present on all three levels is the comic character of Papageno who serves to unify the plot while inviting us to laugh at him and making it safe for us to laugh at ourselves. Mozart creates his own musically unifying device when he seizes upon the terms verloren (lost) and retten (found), sets them to prominent music and has various characters repeat them with surprising frequency.
The opera opens with a disarmed Tamino pursued by a serpent and singing "Oh help me! Oh help me! for I am lost! ... Oh rescue me! oh rescue me!" The Three Ladies of the Queen of the Night save him and show him a picture of Pamina, the daughter of the Queen. Pamina, herself, has lost her family and is in need of rescue. Tamino falls in love with Pamina's image and vows "I will rescue Pamina!" The opening scenes also introduce Papageno, a natural man who lives from day to day catching birds, who knows little of society's conventions or hierarchies.
To rescue Pamina, Tamino and Papageno must enter the realm of Sarastro where the princess is detained against her will. The Queen provides them assistance for this task in the form of a silver flute and a set of golden bells. Once in Sarastro's kingdom, Tamino and Papageno discover all is not what it had seemed. Pamina is being held against her will, but by the lecherous Monostatos yet the realm is a sacred one dominated by temples dedicated to Wisdom, Reason, and Nature. Tamino encounters three spirits whose constraint and dignity counterbalance the arrogance and jealousy of the Queen's three ladies. Likewise, the priests of Sarastro speak of virtue and love. An understandably confused Tamino sings "When, endless Night, will you be riven? When will the light to me be given?"
Countless articles and many books have been written trying to elucidate
The Magic Flute, though it seems Mozart was most interested in the
story's mystical and spiritual dimensions. It is Mozart the lover of humanity,
with his deep regard for our aspirations and deep sympathy for our failings,
who dominates the entire opera. In the superhuman coloratura passages of
the Queen of the Night we sense her outrage and her desperation. In the
otherworldly depths of Sarastro's bass we experience the profundity of wisdom.
In Tamino's aria we recognize the power of ardor and the naivete of infatuation.
In Pamina's aria we hear the despair of one who truly loves another but
is baffled by his silence. In Papageno we revel in the life of sensual pleasure
and experience the grace allotted to our simple needs for shelter, sustenance
and companionship.
By David Mosley
Pictures from the performances
6 rehearsal photos