Overture to The Magic Flute
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
In the last year of his life, contrary to popular myth, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was beginning to see a turnabout in his professional fortunes. True, he had been in ill health, burdened by debt and a falling-off of his popularity with fickle Viennese audiences. But by the spring of 1791 he was busy at work on two operatic projects at the same time: The Magic Flute, a German-language SINGSPIEL (an opera with spoken dialogue), and LA CLEMENZA DI TITO, a rather old-fashioned “serious” opera in Italian. While TITO was intended for a gala performance in Prague as part of the celebrations of the coronation of a new emperor, DIE ZAUBERFLOTE (“Magic Flute”) was written for more modest circumstances: performances in a small theatre in the suburbs of Viennese, before middle-class “family audiences.” While the Italian opera turned out to be a disappointment, the singspiel was an instant, long-running popular success---perhaps a sign of what might have been had Mozart lived.
Commissioned by a roustabout theatre-manager, one Emmanuel Schikaneder, who himself wrote the libretto (and even created the popular role of Papageno, the Bird-Catcher in the first performances), “The Magic Flute” was a confusing scramble of pseudo-Egyptian mythology (complete with references to Osiris and Isis), a boy-meets-girl story, plus a fascinating admixture of Masonic symbolism as well. (After years of prohibition by the Church, under the tolerant Emperor Joseph II the masons were permitted to exist, many of the most prominent artist and intellectuals of Vienna becoming members, including both Haydn and Mozart.)
The Magic Flute is Mozart’s most majestic overture: opening with a slow introduction featuring heavy, portentous chords (suggesting the Masonic element), leading to a full-scale ALLEGRO, filled with bustling fugal writing. Midway the music pauses, and three massive intonations in the brass and winds are heard, yet again a Masonic symbol. The whirling energy resumes, and the overture concludes in triumph.
GPYO concert
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