Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Mozart's The Magic Flute: A Short Guide to a Great Opera
    Mozart's The Magic Flute: A Short Guide to a Great Opera
    Mozart's The Magic Flute: A Short Guide to a Great Opera
    Ebook56 pages34 minutes

    Mozart's The Magic Flute: A Short Guide to a Great Opera

    By Michael Steen

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Even Salieri, the notorious villain of Peter Shaffer's drama Amadeus, admired Mozart's comic opera Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), which was premièred in Vienna a few weeks before Mozart's death in December 1791. Though sometimes enjoyed as a children's opera, this is not a pantomime: rooted in Freemasonry, the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason, it promotes the ideals of progress, virtue, self-betterment, truth and justice. Tamino, an Egyptian Prince, has a magic flute to take him and his beloved Pamina through trials of constancy and endurance, before they can attain ultimate bliss.

    Critics have long been confounded as to how Mozart could present such a light-hearted yet deep masterpiece, with such wonderful music, while being in deep financial trouble.

    There is great stylistic diversity. The sensationally difficult part of the Queen of the Night comes from the Italian opera tradition, while the comical bird catcher Papageno (originally performed by the librettist Schikaneder) sings in the popular style of the Viennese suburbs. Such is the beauty of the music that Bernard Shaw thought that the O Isis and Osiris, of Sarastro, the High Priest, was fit to emerge from the mouth of a god.

    Written by Michael Steen, author of the acclaimed The Lives and Times of the Great Composers, 'Short Guides to Great Operas' are concise, entertaining and easy to read. They are packed with useful information and informed opinion, helping to make you a truly knowledgeable opera-goer, and so maximising your enjoyment of a great musical experience.

    Other 'Short Guides to Great Operas' that you may enjoy include Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro and Così fan tutte.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIcon Books
    Release dateFeb 20, 2013
    ISBN9781848315426
    Mozart's The Magic Flute: A Short Guide to a Great Opera

    Read more from Michael Steen

    Related to Mozart's The Magic Flute

    Related ebooks

    Music For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      Music To My Ears

      Jul 12, 2022

      Music To My Ears
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Be Kind To Your Neighbouring Notes Nimble Chromatics

      Jan 21, 2022

      Dmitri Shostakovich’s Fugue No 1 in C Op 87 is rare in that it uses only the white notes on the piano, constructed solely from the seven different notes of the scale of C major with no accidentals. Virtually all music based on the major-minor tonal s

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Unlikely Viking

      Sep 18, 2020

      The Unlikely Viking
      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Inner Threads

      Jul 19, 2024

      Inner Threads
      7 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Full Score

      Aug 6, 2024

      The Full Score
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Closer To Vermeer

      Mar 1, 2023

      Closer To Vermeer
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Soul Of Spain

      Jan 21, 2022

      Soul Of Spain
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Brahms: Sublime Genius On A Major Scale

      May 25, 2023

      THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY COMPOSERS about the productions of their colleagues are usually interesting, and often controversial. Benjamin Britten is a case in point: his opinions were nothing if not opinionated. He arbitrarily divided music lovers into t

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Sounds Unforgettable

      Sep 23, 2022

      Sounds Unforgettable
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      'Fryderyk Chopin' Already Qualifies As One Of The Best Biographies Of The Year

      Oct 18, 2018

      English-Canadian musicologist and university professor Alan Walker spent 10 years doing extensive research into vast archives of primary source material on Chopin, allowing him to produce this MRI-thorough biography.

      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Views From The Podium

      Apr 14, 2022

      ‘In my view, Vaughan Williams is unquestionably one of the great symphonists of the 20th century,’ says Sir Mark Elder. ‘I mean, really important. I would put his symphonies absolutely alongside those of Sibelius and Shostakovich.’ Elder’s journey th

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Passionate Pilgrim

      Apr 14, 2022

      To be writing about Ralph Vaughan Williams feels particularly apt now, not simply because it’s his anniversary year, but because throughout his long life, the composer struggled to make sense of the very kind of mysteries and horrors that assail many

      11 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Keys To Success

      Mar 17, 2022

      The Keys To Success
      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      MUSIC MALICE & MURDER

      Mar 19, 2024

      MUSIC MALICE & MURDER
      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Composers And Catalogue Numbers: An Appreciation

      Jan 19, 2024

      But first, why ‘an appreciation’? Possibly for the hard work that goes into this aspect of musicology by the compilers and editors; possibly for the catalogues’ usefulness; maybe even for the aesthetic beauty of their systematic and diverse approache

      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Your Time To SHINE

      Mar 17, 2023

      Repertoire Let’s discuss the most fun part of the job first: deciding on the repertoire! There’s so much to choose from, and whether you’re entering the Modern or the Classical category, you’ll have to narrow it down to about two to three pieces. It

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Mendelssohn Spring Song Op 62 No 6

      Mar 15, 2024

      ABILITY RATING ADVANCED Key A major Tempo Allegretto grazioso Style Romantic Will improve your ✓Arpeggiated chords ✓Phrasing ✓Voicing This glorious, open-hearted piece remains ever-popular with performers and audiences alike. And for good reason. It

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Liberating The Lark

      Oct 29, 2020

      A phenomenon. Vaughan Williams’s Romance for Violin and Orchestra: The Lark Ascending constantly rides high across the world in polls of music-lovers’ favourite pieces. A majority of listeners to Australia’s ABC Classic radio network recently indicat

      10 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Breathing Life Into Music

      Oct 28, 2021

      Breathing Life Into Music
      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Antonín Dvorák

      Aug 5, 2021

      Antonín Dvorák
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Digital History

      May 24, 2022

      In electronic music circles, the words vintage and analog are often interlinked. Ask someone to name a 'vintage' synth and 9 times out of 10 you'll hear the name of some '70s classic – a Moog, a Prophet, perhaps an ARP… At the risk of making some rea

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Simple, Duple, Alla Breve And The Rest The Complex Issue Of Time Signatures

      Sep 15, 2023

      The time signature, found at the very beginning of a piece after the clef and the key signature, is made up of two numbers. The top number tells us the number of beats in each bar, the lower number the note value we are counting. Thus 2/4 tells us tw

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Parsifal Richard Wagner

      Mar 19, 2020

      Parsifal is Richard Wagner’s last music-drama, composed from 1877-82 and performed at Bayreuth for the first time in July 1882, around six months before the composer’s death. But right from the 1840s when, in his 30s, Wagner read the medieval knight

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Mozart's The Magic Flute

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Mozart's The Magic Flute - Michael Steen

      Front coverTitle page

      Published in the UK in 2013 by Icon Books Ltd,

      Omnibus Business Centre, 29–41 North Road, London N7 9DP

      email: [email protected]

      www.iconbooks.net

      ISBN: 978-1-84831-542-6 (ePub format)

      ISBN: 978-1-84831-544-0 (Adobe ebook format)

      Content previously published in Great Operas, published in the UK in 2012 by Icon Books Ltd

      Text copyright © 2012, 2013 Michael Steen

      The author has asserted his moral rights.

      No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

      Typesetting by Marie Doherty

      CONTENTS

      Title page

      Copyright

      PREFACE

      USING THIS EBOOK

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      MOZART’S THE MAGIC FLUTE

      THE OPERA AND ITS COMPOSER

      WHO’S WHO AND WHAT’S WHAT

      THE INTERVAL – TALKING POINTS

      The exceptional quality of the music

      Political correctness

      Sources of the opera

      Freemasonry in the plot

      Freemasonry in the music

      Comedy or farce?

      ACT BY ACT

      Act 1

      Act 2

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      Sources of quotes

      Other sources

      NOTES

      Short Guides to Great Operas

      PREFACE

      This guide is aimed at the ordinary opera-goer and opera-lover, usually a busy person who wants to know the essentials of the opera but has little time to grasp them.

      It provides key background information to The Magic Flute, told engagingly by someone who knows the opera intimately.

      It is light, easy to read, and entertaining. Relevant information has been carefully selected to enhance your appreciation of Mozart’s work.

      It is authoritative, but not dense or academic. It is unburdened with the clutter that can easily be obtained elsewhere. It concentrates on information that it will help you to know in advance.

      Read quickly before going to the opera or listening to it at home, you will get the very best out of the performance and have a truly enjoyable experience.

      Opera can be a great social occasion. Being knowledgeable and well-informed, you’ll appreciate this magical art-form much more if you read this first.

      I hope you enjoy the opera!

      Michael Steen

      USING THIS EBOOK

      A very quick grasp of the opera can be gained by reading the opening section on ‘The opera and its composer’ and the ensuing ‘Who’s who and what’s what’. Further elaboration may be found in the sections entitled ‘The interval: talking points’ and ‘Act by act’.

      The footnotes and boxes are an integral part of the information. The reader is encouraged to go to these by

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1