The Magic Flute

"You know my greatest desire is to write operas."
Mozart

We went to see The Magic Flute yesterday at Seattle Opera. It was a good afternoon to be inside because we had several inches of rain this weekend!

The Magic Flute was the last opera Mozart wrote and the successful premier cheered him up as his health was declining. After his death there were hundreds of performances in the 1790's. To this day it's still one of the most beloved operatic works.

The opera is dense with religious and political allegory and Masonic symbolism, but on the surface it's also a simple fairytale. Sunday was family performance day at Seattle Opera so there were lots of children in the audience. We've noticed the kids usually watch quietly (or sleep) while their noisy parents and grandparents feel the need to explain the entire thing out loud. (I hope I remember how annoying that is if we take Nova to the opera someday.) Anyway, it wasn't a big budget production but the sets and costumes were bright and clever. The singers were good too, so there was something for everyone.

The magic flute charms ferocious beasts at Seattle Opera...

Magic Flute score written in Mozart's hand

So how long did Mozart sit in front of a blank sheet of paper before writing the score? Probably not long. Complete, perfect music poured out of his genius mind and he just wrote it down with few corrections. He described his method of composing in a passage from a famous letter:

When I am...say, traveling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during nights when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how they come I know not; nor can I force them...when I proceed to write down my ideas, I take out the bag of my memory...the committing to paper is done quickly enough, for everything is already finished; it rarely differs on paper from what it was in my imagination.

Arrival of Queen of the Night
Stage set by Karl Schinkel, 1815 production

Mozart tailored the music for the skill levels of the singers he had for the premier. The libretto was written by Emanuel Schikaneder in a form called Singspiel, which includes intervals of spoken words that keep the action moving. Schikaneder himself had a leading part in the premier as the bird-catcher Papageno. Mozart's sister-in-law sang Queen of the Night, a short but notoriously difficult soprano role with high F notes.

The highlight of the opera is the Queen singing The Vengeance of Hell Boils in my Heart while being lowered from the top of the stage in a harness. Well, the Queen walked on stage in our production. But that shrieking, wonderful aria is one of the greatest moments in all of opera. Many girls dream of being a ballerina-- my fantasy is playing Queen of the Night.

Click here for a link to a YouTube video of the Queen of the Night's big moment on stage.