By Conductor, Nicholas Cleobury
Mozart rose to the new challenges set by Schikaneder's commission, producing a truly modern work, a genuine musical and dramatic hybrid, Shakespearean in its ability to move from the serious to the comic, a mix of opera seria and buffa, songs and church music, and his return to German Singspiel.
Magic operas were popular in Vienna at the time, and Mozart and Schikaneder drew from a number for the MAGIC FLUTE. A book of oriental fairy tales called Dschinnistan, contained a story called "Lulu or The Magic Flute". Wranitzky's opera Oberon and The Philosopher's Stone by Schack (Mozart's first Tamino and himself a flautist) written a little earlier, were particular sources. Schikaneder was an expert actor, particularly famous for his Hamlet and Lear, also a singer, and his troupe were well known for a wide range of repertoire and brilliant productions. They played at the large Theater auf der Wieden where the MAGIC FLUTE was first given on September 30th 1791, Mozart conducting the first two performances and Schikaneder playing Papageno.
Schikaneder's detailed dramatic sense was tailormade for Mozart. As another opera, Kaspar the Bassoonist on the same story, opened in Vienna in June, they may have changed and added to their story, but certainly Mozart wanted to add serious themes, as he and da Ponte had done in Don Giovanni. Certainly the opera takes a weightier turn with the entry of the 3 boys in the Act 1 Finale. He wrote much of it in his rented summerhouse in the Theater grounds Helped by Schikaneder's plentiful wine and oysters he produced a work of great charm, humanity and depth.
The Overture starts in the solemn Masonic world with the 3 trial chords, the Masonic number, in the key of E flat (3 flats), the majestic main key of the opera. The Masons helped Mozart, and after his death Constanze, and 3s dominate the opera. (3 Ladies, 3 Boys, 3 instruments on stage, 3 visits to the altar etc). The main part of the Overture is livelier and more varied, the whole mirroring the serious and lighter themes of the opera.
Mozart's use of keys, setting the emotional and dramatic terrain, his colours of the canvas, is central to his technique, alongside his word setting, ranging from syllabic for the simpler Papageno, to virtuoso coloratura for the enraged Queen of the Night to lyrical for the love music of Tamino and Pamina. Immediately Tamino enters in c minor, darker and more menacing, the Ladies enter back in E flat, more solemn but optimistic, they go to Papageno's key of G major when they are more playful, ending in bright, ceremonial C major. Vocal line also does this, and immediately he is alone Tamino has a ravishing rising interval (major 6th) to depict his wonder at Pamina's portrait, developed throughout the aria, in the solemn, warm key of E flat. This will be the interval for their coming together at the end of the opera.
Much of the harmonic world of the MAGIC FLUTE is quite simple, so that when more tortured harmonies are used they really tell, such as in the bitter music of the Queen of the Night, whereas the Quintet which begins with Papageno's comical padlock music remains wonderfully simple. The Pamina/Papageno duet (E flat) is Mozart at his multilayered best. A love song not between lovers, Pamina upset, Papageno just wanting a girl!
Mozart's orchestration is exquisite throughout, but nowhere more potent than in the opening of the Act 1 Finale. Separated brass and drums, solemn but somehow eerie. The following scene with the Speaker, arioso or elevated recitative, influenced Verdi and Wagner, Mozart breaking new ground, the orchestra really giving a running commentary on the dialogue. We are then introduced to the stage magic flute in glistening C major, (actually wooden with gold gilt, it has special protective powers and can change sadness into joy.) A contrast to Papageno's more basic pipes and the clanging Glockenspiel which will tame the slaves.
The family of Clarinets was quite new, used wonderfully by Mozart, and the basset horn colouring of the Priest 's music is particularly telling. The emotional heart of Act 2 comes with Pamina's aria "Ach ich fuhl's". The unhappy, tortured key of g minor, the slow heartbeats of the orchestra, the sparing but painful use of the woodwind, and her agonised vocal line, make it a summation of all Mozart's arias for women. In his depicting of the Masonic world, Mozart often goes back to older music, note Sarastro's solemn arias, and most notably in the Bach Chorale and fugal style used for the Armed Men.
So by use of many styles and techniques, he draws together a work of great diversity, makes simple things as important as weightier matters, never taking sides, illuminating the myths and messages which abound in the piece, and with Schikander producing a work of complex simplicity which speaks to us at all levels.