I didn’t wear a tie to the opera this time, and I suppose I could write a whole essay about the decline of civilization and how I personally accelerated it. But I won’t, because I happen to know that Monteverdi never wore a tie to the opera either. Besides, it was a Sunday matinee, where the standards have never been as strict. And I caught a strong whiff of mothballs in the lobby, so I know civilization isn’t completely dead.
The opera was Mozart’s Magic Flute, and it would be hard to imagine a more delightful way to spend an afternoon. Never mind that the costumes and sets seemed a bit odd to me (I’m sure they were brilliant, but how can you dress Papagena without a single visible feather?): it’s the music and the singing you come for, and those were very good.
Now, I love Mozart’s operas in general, and I have a soft spot for this one in particular. So don’t take it the wrong way when I tell you that I think the plot is rather silly.
For those of you who don’t know the opera, let me summarize the story. Tamino, the prince of Whatchamacallitania, meets the Queen of the Night (night—forces of darkness—get it?), who introduces him to a portrait of her daughter Pamina. Tamino falls in love at once, as I understand usually happens in these cases. But there’s just one catch, the queen tells him: the evil tyrant Sarastro has kidnapped the princess and is holding her prisoner in his evil Moose lodge. I mean Masonic temple. Someone needs to rescue her. But where oh where will we find a brave hero who will take on the job?
Tamino, being a tenor, realizes that he’s just right for the hero part. The Queen gives him a magic flute, which will spend most of the rest of the opera dangling silently from his shoulder. The flute has surprisingly little to do in the opera, considering that it bought the naming rights. The Queen also sends the birdcatcher Papageno along with Tamino, because she knows that a hero is useless without a comic relief, and because she foresees that Papageno will get all the best songs.
Well, now it’s time to cut to the lair of Sarastro, where sure enough we find Pamina being menaced by one of Sarastro’s evil minions. But when Sarastro himself shows up, he doesn’t seem nearly as evil as we expected him to be. By the end of the first act, Tamino has figured out that Sarastro is really the good guy, and our hero is well on his way to becoming a Freemason.
But first he must endure the terrible trials, for which purpose the good and wise Sarastro has installed a Terrible-Trial-Enduring Room in his temple. (I wanted to put one of those in my house, but it’s amazing how stuffy and outdated the zoning laws are in Pittsburgh.)
There are romantic complications I won’t go into here—enough to fill up most of the second act—but in the end, Tamino and Pamina endure the trials of fire and water together. (In the Pittsburgh Opera’s production, they both looked more like the trial of revolving doors.) Now they can be married and begin a life of wisdom, virtue, and secret handshakes among the Freemasons. Oh, and Papageno proves himself a worthy comic relief, and therefore deserves to marry Papagena, a pretty young woman who is his equal in singing comic arias.
Well, there’s the plot. It’s all a thin veneer for some fairly heavyhanded Masonic ritual and philosophy. At least the story and the philosophy are heavyhanded; the music, of course, is as close to perfect as mortal music gets, and it’s the perfect music that gives this opera its reputation. But the story itself has no life outside the opera, even assuming anyone could completely understand it. And why that story has never caught on—as opposed to some other allegorical stories you might be thinking of—will be the subject of the next installment, which will come after your patience, which I’ve worn out with this installment, has had a chance to revive.
