A new production, in English, of 'The Magic Flute' places Viennese farce in an ancient desert setting and mixes the zany with the serious as it plays the theme of love and morality, writes Eileen Battersby.
IN THE summer of 1791, about six months before his death, Mozart was socialising with friends in Vienna. One of them, the actor/impresario Emanuel Schikaneder who ran a little theatre in the suburbs, suggested that the composer collaborate with him on a project with a libretto to be sung and spoken in German, a Singspiel or song-play. Schikaneder, a self-made man with a flair for knowing what the general public wanted from entertainment, already had an idea, based on an Oriental fairytale which had been published in Austria a few years earlier. Mozart, not exactly a man of the music hall, is said to have been initially wary of a magic opera, fearing a fiasco.
Admittedly, many fanciful stories surround Mozart and both the conception and reality of one of his most popular operas, and only Singspiel, remain characteristically bizarre; Shakespearean comedy meets the Marx Brothers with more than a few nods to traditional pantomime at its earthiest - not forgetting enchanted animals, a bird man and a magical flute. But Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) which the British company, Armonico Consort, performs in English at the Helix Theatre, Dublin next weekend, is a deliberate blend of the zany and the serious, graced throughout by Mozart's glorious music, including several of his most beautiful arias. Rarely, if ever has traditional Germanic philosophical moral purpose been as brilliantly juxtaposed with good old Viennese concert hall farce. The result is indeed magic, and often very funny.
Whatever about its narrative excesses, the story has a profound theme: love, not only at its most romantic, but love in its widest context, love as shared among the brotherhood of man. Both Mozart and Schikaneder were Freemasons, and although Schikaneder had been expelled from his lodge for "unseemly behaviour" - secrecy never had come easily to him - he still believed in Masonic ideas, as did Mozart.
At the time of Schikaneder's approach to Mozart, Freemasonry had come under threat in Austria. Formerly seen as an expression of the Enlightenment, now it was being held responsible for the French Revolution. If all men were to be equal according to Masonic belief, what ruler would be safe? There was also the suggestion that the opera had been inspired by an argument simmering between the royal couple Emperor Joseph II, a committed Freemason, and his wife, Maria Theresa, a Catholic, whose church condemned Freemasonry. She incited a Jesuit raid on her husband's Masonic lodge. There were those who saw Joseph II as the inspiration for Sarastro, while Maria Theresa, at best a study in ambivalence, was an obvious source for the Queen of the Night. It is a clash between the sun or day and the night, while Leopold II was less tolerant of Freemasonry than Joseph and a level of persecution had begun.
Yet the characterisation of Sarastro goes deeper than the parallels with Joseph II; the goodly, wise, god of the sun was also thought to have been based on another of Mozart's heroes, Baron Ignaz von Born, a well-known scientist and thinker who was also the secretary of the Grand Lodge of Austria. When Mozart and Schikaneder were working on the opera, they sketched out the plot while sitting by the bedside of Born, who was dying. During this period, Mozart was also preoccupied with two commissions; an opera, La clemenza di Tito [ sic], to mark the coronation of the king of Bohemia and the famous Requiem, commissioned anonymously and which he came to suspect had been ordered by the Angel of Death for Mozart's own impending funeral.
Even an imagination as mercurial as his must have been overwhelmed and it is fascinating to consider the range of music flowing through The Magic Flute from music hall comedy such as the Papageno/Papagena virtuoso "game" of a song duet, to grand opera, including the daring coloratura of the Queen of the Night, and stately religious music, sung mainly by the priests' chorus.
A late 18th or 19th century opera audience would have been alert to many of the Masonic symbols and allegory present in the plot and staging, much of Sarastro's teaching about love, wisdom and virtue come directly from the textbook of a how a good mason should live. It is not surprising that many suspected Mozart had been murdered by outraged masons, furious to see their secret rituals paraded in the theatre. If this were so, why was Schikaneder left unscathed - after all it was his idea in the first place? As Mozart was known to have been ill, the assassination theory falls flat. Anyhow, all Vienna was obsessed with Freemasonry, so why not write a Masonic opera?
For a modern audience, however, The Magic Flute also depicts a female not content to be passive. Young Pamina, having spent Act One in perpetual bewilderment, pursued by Monostatos the lustful Moor and in Act Two, wrongly feeling she has been rejected because of Tamino's vow of silence, ponders suicide, then becomes intent on sharing the trial, devised by Sarastro's priests, for her intended. Somehow she has developed some backbone during the action. The lovers successfully brave fire and water in a sequence which also tests most set designers.
Depending on the production, the setting may vary, but Mozart's original version, to which Armonico Consort is true, sees the action set in ancient times, in a desert, most likely Egypt - only Turkey was more popular than Egypt with 18th-century composers and dramatists interested in the exotic - Mozart wrote the music for von Gebler's play, Thamos, König in Ägypten in 1774, revising it in 1779.
The opening scene of The Magic Flute sees a young man, Prince Tamino, dashing across the stage pursued by a serpent. He collapses, unaware that his life has been saved by three women who kill the monster. Enter Papageno, the birdcatcher, a self-professed man of nature who catches birds for the Queen of the Night, in exchange for food. His needs are simple; all he wants is a wife. His is a scene-stealer's role full of comic potential, which operates almost at a remove from the main plot concerning the scheming of the Queen of the Night. Seeking vengeance against Sarastro, for a slight inflicted by her husband who gave the Circle of the Sun to Sarastro and not to her, the crazed Queen is planning on using her daughter, Pamino, to destroy Sarastro.
It was none other than Schikaneder who first played the role of Papageno and ironically, although Mozart deliberately kept the role's music simple and its vocal range narrow, the part has been played by many great singers including Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Acting as a comic foil for the prince who takes his vow of silence and various tests seriously, Papageno plays with his glockenspiel, babbles on, shows his fear and generally fails to be heroic. On realising that he has lost his chance of a wife, he then considers hanging himself. But all is not lost and Papageno does get a mate.
Apparently Schikaneder kept Mozart locked up in a garden, or summer house, near the theatre. As the composer worked, the impresario kept him supplied with food and wine. Only days before the opening, on September 30th 1791, Mozart completed the overture and the March of the Priests - which he had left to last. It was Mozart who conducted that first performance. It was a triumph.
Less than three months later, in the early hours of December 5th, Mozart died.
The Magic Flute is at the Helix, Dublin on Apr 5 and 6