Plot and Creation: The Magic Flute

An Original Libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder

Emanuel Schikaneder—impresario, writer, actor, and singer—drew from a variety of sources in crafting the libretto for The Magic Flute, or Die Zauberflöte in the original German. Mozart scholar Peter Branscombe has undertaken perhaps the most exhaus­tive review of the many and sundry sources Schikaneder may have consulted in crafting the text for Mozart’s singspiel.

First and foremost, Schikaneder drew from the performance history of Viennese popular theater, which embraced magic, lowbrow humor, mystery, spectacle, and moralizing sentiments. Its tradition provided a model for the character of Papageno in the stock role of Hanswurst (“Jack Sausage”), a crafty but coarse type who usually falls prey to his baser instincts and provides much of the comic relief.

Two earlier comic operas produced at the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden, where Schikaneder became director in 1789, also share similar source material with Mozart’s work: Oberon, König der Elfen (Oberon, King of the Elves) and Der Stein der Weisen oder Die Zauberinsel (The Philosopher’s Stone, or the Magic Island). Both pieces were based on writings by Christoph Martin Wieland, whose three-volume collection of fairy tales Dschinnistan (1786–89) provided possible models for several aspects of The Magic Flute.

From Wieland’s compilation, the story “Adis und Dahy” includes an enslaved character named Torgut that could be taken as the basis for Monostatos; “Neangir und seine Brüder” contains a hero falling in the love with a portrait of the heroine; “Des Stein der Weisen” has allusions to Egyptian history and mythology; “Die klugen Knaben” perhaps inspired the Three Spirits in the opera; and “Lulu oder die Zauberflöte” is an obvious point of reference. The latter tale also served as inspiration for the libretto for Wenzel Müller’s Kaspar der Fagottist, another contemporary singspiel that premiered four months before The Magic Flute.

Branscombe notes several additional sources that influenced Schikaneder’s libretto. Among these are Chrétien de Troyes’s Arthurian romance Yvain (c. 1177), which was translated into German by K. J. Michaeler, a member of Mozart's Masonic lodge, between 1776 and 1787; the novel Sethos (1731) by French author Abbé Jean Terrasson, which was translated into German by Matthias Claudius in 1777–78; the play Thamos, König in Egypten (1773) by Baron Tobias Philipp von Gebler, for which Mozart wrote incidental music; and a long essay by Ignaz von Born—one of Vienna’s foremost Freemasons—on “The Mysteries of the Egyptians.”

A mythical land between the sun and the moon.

Three Ladies in the service of the Queen of the Night save Prince Tamino from a serpent. When they leave to tell the queen, the bird catcher Papageno appears. He boasts to Tamino that it was he who killed the creature. The ladies return to give Tamino a portrait of the queen’s daughter, Pamina, whom they say has been enslaved by the evil Sarastro. Tamino immediately falls in love with the girl’s picture. The queen, appearing in a burst of thunder, tells Tamino about the loss of her daughter and commands him to rescue her. The ladies give a magic flute to Tamino and silver bells to Papageno to ensure their safety on the journey and appoint Three Spirits to guide them.

Sarastro’s servant Monostatos pursues Pamina but is frightened away by Papageno. The bird catcher tells Pamina that Tamino loves her and is on his way to save her. Led by the Three Spirits to the temple of Sarastro, Tamino learns from a high priest that it is the Queen, not Sarastro, who is evil. Hearing that Pamina is safe, Tamino uses his flute to charm the wild animals who threaten him, then rushes off to follow the sound of Papageno’s pipes. Monostatos and his men chase Papageno and Pamina but are left helpless when Papageno plays his magic bells. Sarastro enters in great ceremony. He punishes Monostatos and promises Pamina that he will eventually set her free. Pamina catches a glimpse of Tamino, who is led into the temple with Papageno.

Sarastro tells the priests that Tamino will undergo initiation rites. Monostatos tries to kiss the sleeping Pamina but is surprised by the appearance of the Queen of the Night. The Queen gives her daughter a dagger and orders her to murder Sarastro.

Sarastro finds the desperate Pamina and consoles her, explaining that he is not inter­ested in vengeance. Tamino and Papageno are told by a priest that they must remain silent and are not allowed to eat, a vow that Papageno immediately breaks when he takes a glass of water from a flirtatious old lady. When he asks her name, she vanishes. The Three Spirits guide Tamino through the rest of his journey and tell Papageno to be quiet. Tamino remains silent even when Pamina appears. Misunderstanding his action for coldness, she is heartbroken.

The priests inform Tamino that he has only two more trials to complete his initia­tion. Papageno, who has given up on entering the brotherhood, longs for a wife instead. He eventually settles for the old lady. When he promises to be faithful, she is suddenly transformed into the beautiful young Papagena but then immediately disappears. Pamina and Tamino are reunited and face the ordeals of water and fire together, protected by the magic flute.

Disconsolate to be without a wife, Papageno tries to hang himself on a tree but is saved by the Three Spirits, who remind him that if he uses his magic bells he will find true happiness. When he plays the bells, Papagena appears and the two immediately start making family plans. The Queen of the Night, her three ladies, and Monostatos attack the temple but are defeated and banished. Sarastro blesses Pamina and Tamino as all join in celebrating the triumph of courage, virtue, and wisdom.

1756
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is born on January 27, one of two surviving children of Leopold Mozart, a composer in the service of the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg.

1762
At the age of seven, Mozart performs for the Empress Maria Theresa in Vienna, as a keyboard prodigy and composer. Over the next 11 years, the Mozart family tours throughout Europe, performing for members of the royalty and nobility.

1767
Mozart completes his first full-length dramatic work, Apollo et Hyacinthus, based on a Latin text drawn from Ovid. It is first performed in Salzburg on May 13.

1776
Emperor Joseph II dismisses the impresario of the Burgtheater, one of the two imperial court theaters in Vienna, and reopens it as the “Nationaltheater,” the home of German drama. Two years later, Joseph founds the Nationalsingspiel, intended to encourage the composition of music dramas in German. Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782) is the most successful of the singspiels created for the Burgtheater before the failure of the Nationalsingspiel in 1788.

1781
Mozart relocates to Vienna, seeking to make his living as an independent composer and performer in the culturally rich Habsburg capital, rather than solely under contract to a wealthy patron or the church.

1784
Mozart becomes a Freemason and joins the Viennese lodge “Zur Wohltätigkeit” (“Beneficence”), a community of liberal intellectuals whose philosophical interests aligned closely with the Enlightenment concerns of reason, nature, and the universal brotherhood of man.

1786
Mozart completes Le Nozze di Figaro, the first of his collabo­rations with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte (followed by Don Giovanni in 1787 and Così fan tutte in 1790). The three works, masterpieces of dramatic structure and musical expression, number among the pinnacles of the opera buffa genre.

1787–89
The German poet Christoph Martin Wieland publishes Dschinnistan, a collection of stories, several of which inspire the plot of The Magic Flute, notably “Lulu, oder Die Zauberflöte,” which tells the story of Prince Lulu, who is enlisted by a “radiant fairy” to rescue a maiden who has been captured by an evil sorcerer, and who is provided with a magic flute to help him in his mission.

1789
The actor, librettist, and theatrical producer Emanuel Schikaneder takes over the direction of the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna. His repertory includes musical dramas (mostly comprising singspiels) and spoken plays with spectacular staging effects, as well as works by serious German dramatists. The theater’s audience bridges the different classes of Viennese society.

1791
The Magic Flute premieres on September 30 at the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden, with Schikaneder performing the role of Papageno and Mozart conducting. The opera receives 20 performances by the end of the following month, and more than 200 performances by 1800.

1791
Mozart falls ill on November 22 and dies on December 5, likely from rheumatic fever.