Mozart's The Magic Flute

I am very please with the UBC Opera emsemble's production of Mozart's last opera, Die Zauberflöte. There really isn't much to comment with regards to the production by UBC students - obviously they are not professionals, so one should not be too harsh to some of the miscues, misnotes or "unintended synopations". But there is a lot to say about the opera itself. Mozart is such a smart man, and in his last opera offers much fertility to those who wants to take the opera seriously (in the academic sense).

Of course, not everyone did a seminar on opera and literature, and still fewer watch operas to offer critical interpretations. This is especially true for a Mozart audience: his music is so gracious, so beautiful, that it takes extra energy just to be conscious and be aware of the critical issues the opera (and more importantly, the music) is raising. From the overture to its final chorus, the music is uniquely Mozartian - it is balanced between form and content, classicism and romanticism; it is as cool as the frolicking leaves of autumn, but as warm as the spring rain on the verdant fields. There are a few moments of melancholy, and one see the gray winter clouds blocking the sun; but there are also the sunny moments of the opera, and one just cannot help but smile along, as the chamber force of Mozart's orchestra gently carry away one's consciousness along the musical current. Each moment of silence is a moment for breath; of laughter, of release; of applause, of catharsis.

Critically, my interpretation of the opera is that Mozart is criticizing the institution of marriage of the church of his time. We are told on the surface (and in the libretto) that the Queen of the Night and the black dude Monostatos are the evil characters who are prevent the marriage of Pamina and Tamino the prince. Sarastro is the head of a church (an Egyptian one? They worshop light, but they worship Osiris?) that "kidnapped" Parmina but eventually helps the couple united after a series of trials for Tamino. Papageno is a birdcatcher who is thrown into the prince's adventure; all opera long he just wants a wife; he fails at the trials, but is given his Papagena and a whole bunch of kids. There is a magic flute in the opera: it is the prince's weapon to defend himself; Papageno gets a bunch of bells. The surface interpretation of the opera would be to go to place of the light (the temple), withstand the trials (of religious laws), and you will win your true love. Those who violate the laws (e.g. the Queen of the Night) are dangerous and must be rejected. The Prince in the end gets his girl, and supposedly they live on happily ever after.

A lesser composer might take the libretto and set this surface interpretation into the music. And what we will get is a conservative, misogynist opera about the how men are superior to women, and that the only way to live a good life is under church doctrines. A less intelligent composer would have written a less lively and warm Papageno. Mozart's music given to Papageno, I would argue, is the only way to understand Mozart's criticism of marriage in this opera. In Mozart's opera, Papageno - a man full of vanity and sin - is the true hero of the drama. It is he who gets the last say of the happiness of marriage. Papageno's music is very intimate, very heartwarming; the following final chorus in contrast seems cold and superficial. The prince might have been given a magic flute, but it is in Papageno's songs (especially his final parts just before the Chorus) that is full of the usages of the flutes; the final chorus, on the other hand, is dominated by the strings. By this choice of orchestration and melodic invention, I think Mozart is pointing out the fact that it is Papageno whom we should embody (but not imitate); the prince sticks far too close to the temple's doctrines, and while his marriage might seem happy, it is difficult to image a happy life for the couple after the empty proms and circumstances. What the temple priest sanuctions to be "holy" caused unnecessary pains; it also creates unncessary silences between the couple (the prince and Pamina). On the contrary, Papageno and Papagena may not be the purist, the holiest; on the contrary, they are the happiest with their children. Earthly paradise can be achieved without earthly institutions; what really matters is purity in heart, simplicity in life, and humour in love. The "magic flute" is not an actual instrument that one holds and plays; it is, like the orchestra to the characters on stage, an aura of happiness and understanding of the world within the individual.

Of course, one can always ask if this is just MY reading and unintended by Mozart. I would answer by citing Mozart's other operas, where he makes similar criticism of his society. In Don Giovanni, Mozart makes us question conventional morality: certainly we're not supposed to Don Giovanni; on the other hand, Don Ottavio is not any better. It is a question to be raised, but not necessary to be answered. In Cosi Fan Tutti, Mozart turns a misogynist play into a satire that makes fun of everyone. And his The Marriage of Figaro is without question one of the most successful satires of all time. I will also cite Mozart's treatment of this flute. Papageno, in this UBC production, gets an almost primitive pipe, but the actor actually plays it live; the Prince, on the other hand, does not really do anything with the flute - his music comes straight from the orchestra. The problem with that is the sound then is not authentic, because the orchestra is in a pit, and the sound is muffled (in fact, initially I thought the orchestra was a recording! It wasn't until the intermission that I went to the front and found out that there was actually an orchestra! The muffled sound really surprised me!). The prince does not get an authentic sound; nor the prince gets flute accompaniments in his moment of triumph (the final chorus); Papegeno, as I've mentioned before, does. Mozart is absolutely brilliant in the subtle games he play with the audience. One really has to think about his wonderful music before one sees another more intellectually critical interpretation of Mozart's music.

Give me another performance and I can go on forever with this. Mozart is just so good! How anyone can be so ingenius with his art and at the same time be so subtly critical absolutely baffles me! But I do know of another artist who is just like Mozart - a master of her art and criticism: Jane Austen. I probably have said this before, but I will say it again: there has never been such a close parallel between two artists than Mozart and Austen. Professor Lee Johnson once said that reading an Austen novel is like watching a Mozart opera. Well, there is a grain of truth to that!