I watched “The Magic Flute” on February 2nd at Chan Center. This was actually my first opera experience. It is also Mozart’s last work; the composer died two months after the show premiered, in 1791. It is an opera in two acts to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The story was originally written by the German poet C. M. Wieland. In the opera, the Prince Tamino is persuaded by the Queen of the Night to rescue her daughter Pamina with the accompany of Papageno from captivity under the high priest Sarastro. With the power of the magic flute, Tamino learns the high ideals of Sarastro’s community and seeks to join it. Tamino and Pamina undergo severe trials of initiation, which end in triumph, with the Queen and her cohorts vanquished. I think that Mozart successfully bestows characters with lives and unique personalities via different styles of composition.
My favorite piece is the Lied, “The bird-catcher, that’s me.” This is a lied that expresses the simple characteristic of Papageno. Then how to prove he is a simple man with music? Mozart composed it in a very simple way; it is strophic and the melody repeats over and over again with only the words change stanza by stanza. The jumping of the notes also forms a strong contrast with the composition for other characters, indicating that he is a very happy man. While the famous “Queen of the Night” aria introduces the audience with a totally different woman; she jumps from high note to high note, which is inhuman to some extent. The through-composed aria is also off the scale, which implies that the queen is a very complicated and unpredictable person. The through-composed aria contributes to the dramatic effect of the opera. When it comes to Sarastro and priests, it is another story: Sarastro sounds very calm and serious and the chorus of priests sounds like a choir singing a hymn. Actually, when I heard this, I felt very confused: shouldn’t Sarastro be a very bad guy? Why did he have such a peaceful aria? Well, the answer was revealed in the next few scenes that he is not as bad as described by the queen of the night. Thus, the aria foreshadows the climax of the story.
In spite of the composition, I have to admit that I personally didn’t like the story. I think it is very cliché –a prince and a princess falling in love at first sight and then living happily ever after, while Papageno, the bird catcher, was like a clown in the show and fail the trials. He fell in love with Papagena only after realizing her true appearance. I’m not a fan of 18th-century literature and art because of the ideology of fixed classes and expectations on the social division of labor. But it is also because of the unique social context that contributes to the “classical era.”
Overall, this is a good performance. The student actors and actresses showed their talent and passion in the opera. I was fortunate to attend the opera with full costumes at an affordable price.