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PA RTI SA N REV I EW
And with
T he Magic Flute
anyone might be tempted to echo
Kierkegaard about the consuming desire of Genius for Idea. What
an extraordinary subject, after all, as compared with the traditional
claptrap of Don Juan. No mystique is necessary to comprehend the
opera, though. "The initial idea of
Die Zauberflote
was to be more
or less as follows: the hero makes the acquaintance of the fairy queen,
who gives him a portrait of her daughter and sends him to rescue
her from captivity in the castle of the wicked magician, which he
will be able to do by the help of the magic flute. For some reason
which has never yet been satisfactorily explained, the whole plot was
completely changed at this stage."3 I should think that this change
can be explained very simply and very happily on the assumption
that Mozart himself insisted on it, and thereafter strictly supervised
the libretto. The opera as we know it, then, would have been de–
termined not by any Magic or Destiny, but by a conscious intellectual
decision on Mozart's part. For the first time, at long last, Mozart ap–
pears to have been in charge; he really learned to bully his librettist;
maybe he was responsible for the participation of the shadowy Carl
Ludwig Giesecke. Unlike
Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute
is unified
in conception, and everything about it matches the temper of Mozart's
genius. All the diversities- of musical style, action, tone, and mood–
are perfectly controlled to a single dramatic end.
The Magic Flute
is the least problematic of Mozart's operas;
nobody can miss or misinterpret its humane message. In a hundred
years the only real change in critical attitude toward it is that now
we take it seriously. Mozart's view of destiny is rather mystic than
3 Dent, in
Mozart's Operas.
Of course, no external proof exists for the
ch ange in plot; and the inconsistencies that this change is supposed to have
caused have been exaggerated. The Queen of the Night and her Ladies are first
represented as forces for good, but this only corresponds to Tamino's opinion;
his own later reflection and better understanding are matched by that of the
audience. It has been objected that the Magic Flute and Bells, as gifts from
the Queen, should not become agencies of good; but in fairy tales magic items
are always morally indifferent. And one of the not-so-subtle aspects of the action
is that Tamino wins through his own character and through Pamina 's love, not
essentially by magic. In the scene of the lovers' meeting Pamina explains at con–
siderable length that the Flute was mysteriously shaped by her father; the Flute
then is in some sense hers, and it is Pamina who guides Tamino through the
ordeals. Magic and deceit are the Queen's powers. Sarastro's are deeper, more
lasting, and human.
