Page 138 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

136 OPERA IN GERMAN

Mozart and Freemasonry many attractions—it offered a
free-thinking and enlightened
On December 14, 1784, Mozart approach to religion; espoused
was admitted to one of Vienna’s the virtue of justice, which for
eight Freemason lodges. The city many Masons meant active
at that time had more than 700 opposition to abuses of state
Masons, including “brethren”— and clerical power; and provided
then, as now, only men could be a place where men of different
Masons—drawn from the highest status could mix on terms
nobility, officialdom, and even of relative equality. Mozart
clergy, but also from the ranks remained a devoted Mason
of the middle classes: doctors, the rest of his life and wrote
Freemasons swear in a new merchants, booksellers, and several pieces for performance
member in a colored copper musicians, including Mozart’s at Masonic occasions, notably
engraving of c. 1750. Mozart was librettist for The Magic Flute, 1785’s Masonic Funeral Music in
similarly initiated into Vienna’s Emanuel Schikaneder. For men C Minor in memory of two of his
“Beneficence” lodge in 1784. like Mozart, Freemasonry had recently passed brethren.

opera The Devil to Pay, a huge numbers added for atmosphere and Vienna’s Burgtheater in 1778.
success in Britain, became a to convey character. In works such as One of its biggest successes was
success in translation in Berlin, in Hiller’s Die Jagd (“The Hunt”) (1770) Mozart’s The Abduction from the
the 1740s. Two adaptations of other and Benda’s Walder (1776) and Seraglio (1782).
operas by Coffey inspired the Romeo und Julie (1776), the singing In the spring of 1791, Emanuel
Leipzig-based Johann Adam Hiller, parts became the dramatic core of Schikaneder commissioned Mozart
regarded as the father of singspiel, the piece. Official recognition to write another singspiel—this
to begin his career in the 1760s. of such works as examples of a time for the Theatre auf der Wieden
popular and distinctively German in Vienna, where Schikaneder was
National genre genre, to be encouraged in the face the director. Oberon, the King of
In the hands of composers such as of the all-dominant Italian opera, the Elves, with music by Mozart’s
Hiller, Georg Anton Benda, Karl came when Habsburg Emperor friend Paul Wranitzky, was a recent
Ditters von Dittersdorf, and Ignaz Joseph II, a lover and patron of the hit for Schikaneder’s company
Umlauf, singspiels were no longer arts, established a short-lived and an example of a new breed
simply spoken dramas with musical National-Singspiel company at of singspiel, sometimes called

The Magic Flute’s characters expressed through music

The Queen of the Night Papageno (bird-catcher) Tamino and Pamina Sarastro (high priest)
Soprano, whose vocal Baritone, who sings upbeat Tenor and soprano, Bass, whose slow and dignified
dexterity culminates and bouncy folk melodies respectively, whose performance, with speechlike
in a staccato aria that with prominent use of pan romantic and deeply felt delivery in parts and heightened
represents instability, pipes, suggesting his arias represent enlightened by grand orchestral flourishes,
greed, and duplicity. happy-go-lucky nature. principles of light and joy. suggests justice and wisdom.

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