A Note from Music Director James Conlon

Mozart’s The Magic Flute is amongst the world’s most popular and beloved operas, written by one of its most esteemed composers. A pseudo fairy tale, its invented mythology appeals to children and adults, philosophers and writers, casual operagoers and die-hard fans. It is immediately accessible to all upon a first hearing, yet sufficiently profound and sophisticated to have commanded the continued attention of great thinkers and musicians for more than two centuries.  

The Magic Flute has accomplished this despite its birth in an extraordinarily humble, if not to say, down market environment. There can be little doubt that its monumentality in the history of classical music is due solely to Mozart’s greatness and the infinite magnitude and generosity of his music. 

Its text’s authorship is complicated although naturally attributed to theater director and stage star Emmanuel Schikaneder, who also created the role of Papageno at the opera’s premiere. He was unquestionably a talented and shrewd producer, but a man for the ages, he was not. For many, the plot is a mishmash of ideas and effects with a confused and confusing through line, and a disconnected structure.  

There are eclectic “literary” sources without clear ancestry. How did it succeed in winning not just the world’s approval, but its love and devotion? 

Three words provide the answer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  

The first, second and third reasons are clear: The music, which would be great set to any text! Then, the nobility of its enlightenment ideas, its humanity and wit, its generosity of spirit are the hallmarks of the multiplicity of talents accorded to this transcendent genius, to whom the world has rightly attached itself. 

Beethoven considered it Mozart’s greatest work. Many writers and musicologists consider it his last testament although he completed another opera simultaneously, La Clemenza di Tito. He was still to write the clarinet concerto and the Requiem (the latter left incomplete) in the few months that remained, but the notion that he was consciously leaving posterity a work that constituted a final moral statement has been around from shortly after his death. The passage of time has further entrenched this perception.  

But has this view been reverse-engineered, as is often the case with composers’ final works? Did the composer himself believe that The Magic Flute would be his last theatrical work before confronting death? Was a life-affirming Enlightenment message in The Magic Flute meant to complement the alternative Roman Catholic view of death, with both its solace and terror, in the Requiem? Was it a visionary way forward towards musical/operatic theater of the future?   Or were they none of these, but another pair of commissions that he was fulfilling with customary genius?  

Was the gentle moralizing that pervades the work meant for everyone or only for his friends and lodge mates who could appreciate the Masonic symbolism, much or most of which remains obscure to us noninitiates even today? (Some of those friends might have been shocked that he had revealed secret symbols on the stage.) 

Was his true focus to write a work in German that would break away from the Italian language and its traditions in which he was already preeminent?  The operas of Mozart’s final decade are masterpieces that, along with his symphonies, concerti, sacred works and chamber music, would mark the zenith of 18th-century music.  

Was his purpose to create a musical-theatrical work that stood halfway between the popular and the erudite, or to fulfill any commission he could find as he was desperate for work in the waning months of his life? 

Having consigned Don Giovanni for eternity to his infernal retribution, was he now suggesting that mankind no longer needed the fear of punishment to behave morally and virtuously? Having measured the breadth and depth of the battle of the sexes in The Marriage of Figaro, was he ready to call it a stalemate and propose a higher level of peaceful and productive coexistence? Was it time for Don Alfonso’s clarifying lesson to the four young lovers in Così fan tutte to be superseded by Sarastro’s illuminating series of death-defying trials through which Pamina and Tamino symbolically lead each other to enlightened wisdom?  

Was the act of composing The Magic Flute some, all, or any of these things?  

After this maddening litany of questions, it is impossible to propose an answer. It is all of these things…and more. The universality of this work will be found and appreciated by considering each of these questions as aspects of a work in which the musical, spiritual, and philosophical substance is greater than the sum of all its parts.  

The musical innovations are countless. To cite them all is beyond the scope of this essay. But amongst the leading ones would be the forward-looking freedom of form that foreshadows the future.  One can perceive the emergence of the latter half of the 19th century in the famous scene between Tamino and the Speaker, the mouthpiece for the Masonic realm under Sarastro’s leadership. The entire six-minute scene is an open-ended creative discussion which defines the musical form. It is technically a recitative with orchestral accompaniment. Nothing new. But the composer uses it a new way, opening a pathway for the continuous uninterrupted flow of text (Durchkomponiertmusik in German) that will be the eventual goal of Wagner, Verdi and Strauss. Might Mozart’s next unwritten opera, had he lived, have plumbed the depths of this relatively untapped form? 

Another unique example is the extraordinary creation of Papageno, the bird catcher. Mixing genres in a novel way, his simple strophic songs (written to accommodate Schikaneder’s  limited vocal range) are juxtaposed with the audacious use of the high Italian style exemplified by the Queen of the Night’s coloratura arias. Finally, we perceive another giant step in the emancipation and sophistication of the orchestra’s role in shaping and reflecting the opera's dramatic arc.  

It is an experimental work in several ways, so it is not surprising that it is difficult to identify a single recognizable dramatic form. The musical heritage falls into several traditions, and the dramatic material into a handful of fashionable dramatic and literary conceits. Before looking at the ultimately crucial philosophic and spiritual questions posed in the work, let's look first at those theatrical and literary fashions. 

The rescue opera (drawing, for instance, from Voltaire’s Candide and a long tradition of German fairy tales): A handsome prince Tamino, a tenor, falls in love with an imprisoned Princess Pamina, a soprano. They must both pass through spiritual tests to overcome their fear of death before being rewarded with becoming the inheritors of the kingdom and the successors to Sarastro, High Priest of Isis. Note the plural. Mozart’s revolutionary ideas are at times at odds with Masonic principles (and prejudices). The married couple will rule as equals, not just the man “attended” by the woman, a daring proposition to all elements of society. 

The Bildungsoper, a musical and theatrical equivalent of the 18th-century literary Bildungsroman, which was a narrative describing the spiritual and educational development of young, usually, aristocratic men. The idea that young nobles should learn through life’s experiences how best to become leaders was dear to Enlightenment thinkers. They felt saddled by the consequences of the Divine Right of Kings, especially in extreme cases like King George III of England (known as the Mad King), a situation about which they could do little. Bildungs literature was in part an attempt to encourage and inspire good leadership, for which Tamino and Pamina are being prepared.  

Magical instruments with supernatural powers (inspired by a fairy tale by C.M. Wieland): a flute (recalling Orpheus, to whom Mozart was often compared) and magic bells for Papageno. Other contemporary stories included enchanting bassoons, harps and zithers. 

The fictitious voyager’s chronicle: This literature often recounted “exotic" stories from Africa, the Middle and Far East. It contributed to a developing taste and trade not just in art, but in storytelling. Brigid Brophy, a British writer on Mozart, observes “Exploration, commerce and empire gave 18th-century Europe the raw material for the exotic. The influx of objets trouvés, some of them human…. moved the imagination of artists. Christian missionaries, militarists and merchants set out to subdue (what they considered) savages…But as stories returned, both true and imaginary, the message read by Enlightenment was often that the so-called pagans and savages were perhaps more enlightened and humane than Europeans. Mozart, in his earlier work The Abduction from the Seraglio, forcefully illustrates this by demonstrating that the Muslim Pasha is the most enlightened character in that rescue opera, which would serve as a model for The Magic Flute. 

Musically, Mozart was free to do whatever he wanted.  Schikaneder, however gifted a theatrical producer he was and whatever his personal goals were (aside from making money), was not a match to the vastly superior imagination and genius of the composer.  

The free mixture of musical styles employed by Mozart can be summarized here.  

Italian opera
The basic musical vocabulary is still that of the Italian opera that Mozart and his public knew so well, just sung in German. The arias are numerous: Tamino has two, the Queen of the Night two (in the grand Italian virtuosic style), Sarastro two, Pamina two scenes. The Italian-style overture, his most complex, shows the extraordinary development found in his 41 symphonies. The two extended finales of both acts, all constructed around dramatic events, emulate those in the three Da Ponte operas. 

Symphony
After Tamino faints (a symbolic death ) The first scene of the Three Ladies are written in Mozart’s best symphonic style, constructed like a concise three-movement symphony. Later they will sing three quintets, combining comedy and seriousness, including the moment of their demise together with the Queen of the Night and Monostatos.  

Folksong
Papageno sings in a more popular vein, necessitated by Schikaneder’s limited  vocal range. He rarely moves out of that style, singing sometimes to the accompaniment of his magic bells, a glockenspiel. 

Turkish Music
This style of music, popular in Vienna, is utilized for Monostatos, a Moorish slave. Mozart and Beethoven used it extensively. The term came to be used broadly for any “foreign” or Eastern music. Its use in The Abduction from the Seraglio is highly appropriate, as the story takes place in Turkey. In The Magic Flute, it reflects Monostatos’ Northern African roots. The term, being broad and imprecise, could be applied to anything that came under the now uncomfortable heading of “exotic.”  

In keeping with what we presume was Mozart’s desire to create a work for the populace in their native speaking German, he adopted a practice of largely eliminating the Italian style recitative. This was the form, usually accompanied by a keyboard instrument, which provided audiences that could follow but did not necessarily speak Italian, with a running plot of the story. It connected moments of more poetic reflection, or of more intense emotion and passion. The function of recitative was taken over by spoken dialogue in the German Singspiel operas, as German-speaking casts were reciting texts for German speaking audiences.  

The work is replete with Masonic symbols, some of which are known, many not. The numbers three and five are ubiquitous. Mozart features brass and wood wind instruments which imitate the Masonic lodges’ practices. Trombones, hitherto used only for sacred liturgical music and highly selective moments of supernatural interventions in the Italian operas, are now part of what could characteristically be called Masonic music. 

The work’s (Masonic) secular spirituality derives from a concentration of diverse sources drawn from some of the cradles of western civilization: Egypt, Persia and Greece, perceived through European lenses. Most of us are not privy to the vocabulary of the Masonic symbols, but the work so radiates with Mozart’s characteristic warmth, humanity and insight, that it transcends any particular philosophy, theology or ethical system.  Philosophically, The Magic Flute stands firmly in the Enlightenment, and its humanist concepts.  Reason, Virtue, Sympathy and Clarity are the cornerstones of a better life. Humankind can embrace peaceful coexistence, foster equality for all and strive for harmony and benevolence through intelligence, work and art. 

Mozart shows us what we could become. Through adoption of the tenets of the realm of Sarastro’s temple, we can become our most evolved self. The composer proposes that this is best done by a couple of loving souls, in a blending of perfect devotion. Pamina and Tamino will rule as equals in a new enlightened age. Their union is a model for the best version of ourselves, that which strives. 

By contrast, Papageno, a simple and good soul, is harmonious with his nature. He doesn’t strive at all. He is himself, wants to be nothing else, and is fundamentally unchanged from beginning to end. But he, no less than Tamino, becomes his fullest self in union with Papagena. Mozart, through his seemingly infinite generosity and humanity, understands, loves and celebrates both couples as if he were celebrating two complementary aspects of all humanity, including his own. 

The ultimate personal evolution is to be found in the loving couple, enlightened or not, which will serve as a paradigm for society as a whole. “Mann und Weib, und Weib und Mann, reichen an die Gottheit an,” Pamina and Papageno tell us. “Man and Woman, Woman and Man”—note their equality—“approach divinity.”  

I wished to finish my 20-year tenure in Los Angeles with two masterworks, different though they are:  Falstaff and The Magic Flute. These are the final works of two composers whom I revere and love beyond measure, and whom, alongside Richard Wagner, embody and epitomize the three artists essential to every serious opera house in the world.  

I could not neglect to express my gratitude to the very great artists with whom I have worked since I first conducted The Magic Flute exactly 50 years ago. And with several, seminal authors whose books I took to heart over a lifetime: Boris Goldovsky, one of the heroes of my teenage years; Brigid Brophy, the British novelist, feminist and critic, author of Mozart the Dramatist which I first read in the 1970s and to which I have often returned; Nicholas Till, the British writer, historian and professor whose Mozart and the Enlightenment has been a constant companion in the last two decades. 

The Founding Fathers of our country were deeply devoted to an Enlightenment vision of government. They envisioned the equality of all human beings, the birthrights they should enjoy, and the design of a fair and representative government to which we owe our now 250-year history. But in today’s world, the subject of our young 1776 constitution and government, as yet an imperfect union, is the subject of much reassessment. It has been strongly criticized as a male-dominated society. It served a white, landed gentry, permitted slavery, and excluded women from enjoying the full panoply of human rights. Nevertheless, the implications of the Enlightenment's core concepts and values strongly implied a call for all human beings to enjoy those universal rights. 

A careful study of Mozart’s operas leads to tantalizing questions. In the world of 1791, there were many  inequalities, inequities and prejudices, including within the relatively enlightened Masonic lodges.  Through his operas, Mozart found subtle ways to challenge and critique the world he knew. Were his viewpoints perceived by the populace who attended his The Magic Flute, or by the somewhat more erudite aristocratic who attended the opera primarily for light entertainment?  

Today, would Mozart have recognized the progress accomplished, but be troubled by the as yet unfulfilled promises of the Enlightenment? Was he just writing beautiful music for whomever would listen, with little thought for its effect on society? Or, through his infinite musical genius, was he subtly trying to rectify those injustices that he saw, some of which still prevail in 2026? Was it his last testament, as posterity has come to believe? Is it the articulation of a prophetic ideal?  Or is The Magic Flute simply one of the most sublimely entertaining theater pieces set to music, ever penned by a human being?