This colorful and quirky new production of Mozart’s final opera is directed and designed by Netia Jones. The performance stars Louise Alder, winner of the Dame Joan Sutherland Audience Prize at the 2017 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, in the role of Pamina.
Composed During Mozart’s Final Years
The Austro-Turkish war of 1788--1791 brought hardship to the musicians of Vienna as aristocrats tightened their purse strings. Food prices and taxes rose, there were riots over bread, and members of the cultural elite fled the capital fearing conscription for the war. Mozart’s anxiety over his financial situation severely reduced his compositional output.In debt, he was forced to beg for loans from friends. He also traveled outside Austria to give performances and secure new commissions, but this failed to earn him much money. With the war reaching its conclusion, wealthy patrons were once again able to offer their support to Mozart. His anxiety lifted and he recovered the will to compose.
The year 1791 saw Mozart write some of his most celebrated works, including his Clarinet Concerto, Piano Concerto No. 27, String Quintet No. 6, and the operas “La clemenza di Tito” and “Die Zauberflöte,“ known in English as ”The Magic Flute.” His final opera opened at the suburban Theater auf der Wieden on September 30, 1791 with Mozart himself conducting. He died of unknown causes nine weeks later, leaving his Requiem Mass unfinished.
Scenes from Popular Literature
The librettist for “The Magic Flute" was Emanuel Schikaneder, a German impresario, dramatist, actor, singer, and composer four years Mozart’s senior.He led a troupe of singers and actors that performed operas by Mozart, Haydn, and Süssmayr in the theatres of Vienna.
Several scenes in “The Magic Flute" resemble those from works of literature popular in the Austrian capital at the time, namely German translations of the medieval romance “Yvian” and the novel “Séthos” as well as the essay “Über die Mysterien der Ägypter” (“On the mysteries of the Egyptians”) by the scientist and Freemason Ignaz von Born.
When the opera opened at the Theater auf der Wieden Schikaneder played the role of the lonely bird-catcher Papageno himself. He was deeply affected by Mozart’s death soon afterwards and arranged a benefit performance of “The Magic Flute” to support the composer’s widow, Constanze.
Three is the Magic Number
The number three is a recurring theme in the opera. The overture begins by proclaiming the three notes of the tonic triad of E-flat major, which has three flats in its key signature. Mozart was a Freemason and he associated this overriding key of the opera with that fraternal order.Then, in the course of his adventures, Tamino encounters three ladies, three child-spirits, three slaves, and three priests who preside over three temples. The number three remains an important part of Masonic symbolism: brothers knock three times, they strive to obtain three degrees, and lodges are overseen by three principal officers.
The Mysteries of the Egyptians
The Queen of the Night represents feminine power, the moon, darkness, negativity, irrationality, and chaos, while Sarastro represents masculine power, the sun, light, positivity, rationality, and order.Sarastro and his brethren worship two central characters in ancient Egyptian mythology, namely Isis and Osiris. Mozart himself visited the Temple of Isis at Pompeii as a child just a few years after it was unearthed. According to the story, Isis and Osiris had a son, Horus, who vowed to avenge his father’s murder by Set, god of chaos. This led to eighty years of contests and battles during which Horus lost an eye and Set lost a testicle. The gods eventually declared Horus the victor and order was restored to the world.
New Production for Garingston Opera
This new production of “The Magic Flute” for Garsington Opera is directed and designed by Netia Jones, whom The Observer has called “the most imaginative director of opera working in Britain today.”Jones is no stranger to the weird and wonderful world of fairy tale operas: she directed Unsuk Chin’s “Alice in Wonderland“ for the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2015, and there are colorful traces of Alice’s world in her staging of ”The Magic Flute.“ Jones also directed Britten’s ”A Midsummer Night’s Dream" at the Aldeburgh Festival in 2017, but she is not the first to be inspired by the King of the Fairies: when Emanuel Schikaneder and his troupe arrived at the Theater auf der Wieder in 1789 the first opera they performed was Paul Wranitzky’s “Oberon. “Its success encouraged Schikaneder to produce more fairy tale operas, culminating two years later in his writing ”The Magic Flute.”
