How does the music in Mozart's 'Die Zauberflöte portray good and evil?

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Tutor: Raymond Fearn

How does the music in Mozart’s ‘Die Zauberflöte portray good and evil?

One of the main aspects of The Magic Flute is the evilness verses the good and the light against the dark. This essay looks at evil and good along side, light and dark as well as an insight into other themes that appear throughout the opera. Music cannot simply be good or evil; it relies upon on instrumentation and imagination of the listener to portray good and evil. Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) by Mozart is a German singspiel or spoken dialogue with music. This opera is an exception to all of his mature operas, not only by being a singspiel but also because it was composed purely for money and it was not performed, to begin with, in an opera house but in a suburban theatre. The Magic Flute is influenced by Bach and is more specifically classed as a rescue singspiel, with exotic locations and characters. Some of the traits of singspiel are rescue and exoticism as already mentioned but also magic and religion, all of which feature in The Magic Flute.  We are told that Schikaneder wrote the libretto, possibly with some input from Giesecke and there is speculation that this contributed to the Masonic theme as along with Mozart they were all members of Viennese Masonic lodges. Although The Magic Flute is outwardly a Singspiel – with spoken dialogue instead of recitative and with characters and scenes appropriate to popular comedy – its action is filled with symbolic meaning and its music is so rich and profound that it ranks as the first and one of the greatest German operas. In The Magic Flute Mozart wove the threads of many eighteenth century musical ideas into new designs: the vocal opulence of Italian opera seria; the folk humour of the German singspiel; the solo aria; the buffo ensemble, which is given new musical meaning; a new kind of accompanied recitative applicable to German words; solemn choral scenes; and even a revival of the Baroque chorale-prelude technique with contrapuntal accompaniment, evident in Act two in the duet of the two armed men. ‘The opera is replete with metaphor and symbolism that contrast light and dark, from characters who represent one or the other (Sarastro and the Queen of the Night, for example), through actions and dialogue that dramatise the conflict between them to imagery that underlines the theme. Day and night, good and evil, love and hate, friendship and enmity, forgiveness and revenge: all stand opposed in the opera. While such oppositions are hardly unproblematic in the present day critical climate, they are fully in keeping with the fairy tale logic that governs this opera.’ Die Zauberflöte by Wolfgang Mozart is the last opera he wrote before his death in 1791. ‘Mozart and Schikaneder had originally intended the Queen to be good and Sarastro evil; however, their change of plan necessitated the reversal of roles of good and evil, creating a break in the plot (at the beginning of the Act one finale) where their work was interrupted.’ The Magic Flute is a highly symbolic story although it is often commented upon that the drama seems to be dislocated and the libretto appears to lack consistency. ‘Many people are still confused by the general complexity of the story and in particular by the fact that for most of Act one the Queen of the Night appears to be good and Sarastro bad, while in Act two the reverse is true.’ There is also an underlying theme of revenge which holds a moral concern of the plot and links the three main characters Queen of the Night, Sarastro and Tamino.

The opera is set in a magical world in which enlightenment appears both implausible and marvelous, and this is the key to the opera. The Magic Flute is a geometrical opera with every character having an opposite and everything appears to be in twos or threes. For example in the first scene we are introduced to three ladies dressed in black. It is also a fairly philosophical opera about two people’s quest for realisation and ideal union. The sublimity of the music with which Mozart dressed The Magic Flute shows him as a man of the Age of Enlightenment. The text and music of The Magic Flute incorporates much Masonic symbolism something that at this time was close to Mozart and Schikaneder. The opera starts similar to a traditional fairy tale with a Prince (Tamino) attempting to rescue a princess (Pamina) from the clutches of an evil magician (Sarastro). However it soon becomes clear that Sarastro represents light and Pamina’s mother, the Queen of the Night, represents darkness. In The Magic Flute, Masonic opera Chailley discusses the idea of light and dark slightly differently. He says that ‘ The action of Die Zauberflöte turns essentially on the struggle between two antagonistic ideas symbolised by day and night, Sarastro and the Queen of the Night, Man and Woman. It is a simplification of facts that the struggle is between good and evil as it is more focused on light and dark. The Queen of the Night is the representation of the evil, but night is not evil, it is purely darkness and the opposite of light, represented by Sarastro’. I agree with Chailley’s point of view as he is more or less saying that the dark portrays evil and light portrays good which although this is true in The Magic Flute it must not be mistaken for the night being evil and vice versa. If anyone is “intolerant, bigoted and cruel to all who do not chose to be her slaves,” it is the Queen of the Night, bride of the Sun King’. This shows the opposition of the Queen of the Night and Sarastro, but also tells us how the Queen is the evil one in the opera. There is a similar dualism between Sarastro and the Queen with the sun and the moon. Sarastro bears the solar emblem on his breast while the Queen of the Night appears to her daughter Pamina by moonlight in Act two. This shows the close connection between good and evil and light and dark. ‘Sarastro rules in the domain of light. In contrast, images of night are repeatedly employed as a metaphor for the potential darkness of human thoughts and deeds. As her title indicates, the Queen of the Night, with her inclination for evil and revenge, is characterised by the darkness over which she rules. At the end of the opera, she and her entourage are plunged into eternal darkness.’

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The Magic Flute may have a trite and silly libretto but it is artfully designed to provide many different kinds of music: the Queen of the Night’s angrily glittering coloratura; Sarastro’s and his priests’ noble utterances; the popular clitties for the bird catcher Papageno who accompanies Tamino on his quest; the tense trios for the Queen’s Ladies and the serene ones of the three boys who support Tamino; and the music for Tamino and Pamina themselves, which is direct and intimate as the music of Mozart’s Italian operas usually is not. ‘The Queen of the Night is a goddess, the ...

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