Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756 - 1791)
莫札特 (1756 - 1791)

oper in zwei Akten / Opera in Two Acts / 兩幕歌劇

The plot of The Magic Flute may be simply recounted. It is what might be described as a Bildungsoper, an opera in which the hero is brought to the truth and to true love, after earlier trials and ordeals. A problem has been seen in an apparent disparity between the first and second acts. In the eariler part of the opera the hero, Tamino, is enlisted by the Queen of the Night in the rescue of her daughter Pamina, seized by her father Sarastro. By the second act it appears that the Oueen of the Night is evil and that Sarastro represents the power of good, and it is he who guides Tamino through initiatory ordeals to true wisdom and to his beloved Pamina.

Mozart expressed his own complete satisfaction with the work as a whole, book and music, and it must be possible to see the earily deception of Tamino as part of the process by which he grows to wisdom, a process in which the audience joins.

The bird-catcher Papageno represents a lower level of initiation, in which the simple peasant finds his own truth and wisdom, rewarded by the happiness of which he is capable with his own female counterpart and bride, Papagena.

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