Mozart's Queen of the Night and her need for snopes.com

Moritz von Schwind's "Queen of the Night"

As we stated in last week's initial Magic Flute blog post, every character, every plot point and every musical number in this opera functions as symbolism rather than any kind of simulated "reality" as in The Marriage of Figaro. Since the characters are frequently dismissed as inferior creations, amounting to cartoonish stick figures, I'd like to address that issue in this post and the next one or two.

Today, let's introduce you to THE most misunderstood and misinterpreted character in all of opera: the Queen of the Night. She is widely regarded as, well look: this is a PG-rated blog (mostly), so let's just go with "rhymes with witch". Everyone seems certain that she's a lying, conniving, manipulative, evil, would-be murderess.

If I may play prosecuting attorney for a moment, let me make the case for this view. If it please the Court; ladies and gentlemen of the jury:

• She ain't called the "Queen of Sunshine, Rainbows and Candy Canes", yo! Night = Evil, right? BANG. She's the villain.
• Like the sociopath she is, Queenie does a smooth job of spinning a web of lies to Tamino, her "mark", in her Act 1 aria. "Poor me, my daughter Pamina was abducted by the evil wizard Sarastro. She was terrified and screamed for help. I was heartbroken." No wonder Tamino is all in on playing hero-rescuer, the poor sap.
• Then, in Act 2 when Tamino has wised up and figured out that Sarastro isn't an evil wizard at all ("Why, that lying rhymes-with-pitch!", we can almost hear him exclaim) but rather a benevolent priest, the Queen shows her true colors by sneaking into Sarastro's turf, giving her daughter a dagger and ordering her to kill Sarastro!!!  CALL THE COPS! PSYCHO-KILLER ON THE LOOSE!
• And, at the end, when her evil plans are foiled, Sarastro banishes her and her goons (yes, they're also ladies, but for our purposes: totally goons) to eternal darkness. And we know what THAT means, right?

In conclusion, O Jury, you have no choice but to return a verdict of GUILTY EVIL WICKED AND BAAAAAD!

There. Now I'm no longer playing Mr. Prosecutor; I'm once again Your Humble Blogger. In that regard, I've got a couple of questions for you. IF the Queen is evil, that makes the Three Ladies also evil, since they roll with her, right? Now IF the Three Ladies are evil and bad...

...then how come they 1) punish Papageno for lying, 2) join with Tamino in primly telling the audience that liars should always be punished and that if only men could practice honesty, we'd all be happy; and 3) give Tamino and Papageno their gifts of a magic flute and magic bells, tools they end up using to achieve a happy ending? Hmmmmmm? Lying about lying, are they?

Actually, no.

Let me rock your world. In her Act I aria, the Queen of the Night doesn't lie even once. Sarastro DID abduct Pamina, who WAS terrified. The Queen WAS heartbroken - wouldn't you be, in her place? The only thing she says that isn't true is that Sarastro is evil. That, as we come to learn, isn't the case; he's good.

But she wasn't lying; she was only mistaken. Big difference.

You see, in this opera, "night" does NOT mean "evil"; neither does "darkness". In The Magic Flute, darkness and night symbolize ignorance; lack of wisdom; the opposite of "Enlightenment". You'll recall that the goal of the fraternal order of Freemasons to which Mozart belonged was wisdom, represented as light, or Enlightenment. In Masonic lodges of Mozart's day, new initiates were led to the entrance blindfolded or hooded, to symbolize their confused, unenlightened state. Once admitted, the blindfold was removed and the initiate was dazzled by brilliant light - a blazing fire, perhaps, or a brilliant chandelier - representing the light of Masonic wisdom and truth.

The Queen of the Night and her coterie of fairies believe that they are on the side of the angels. They look at Sarastro's band of priests of Isis and Osiris as a cult. Ever see a TV show or film in which a distraught parent hires a private detective to snatch a child from the clutches of some nefarious cult? That's what Queenie thinks she's doing in recruiting Tamino to bring Pamina back to her.

So who or what does SHE symbolize? That's easy. For Mozart, the Queen of the Night represents that segment of his well-meaning Austrian neighbors who were suspicious of Freemasonry; neighbors who now included the Emperor himself, Joseph II. The secrecy in which Freemasons went about their business turned the tide of public (and governmental) opinion against them, which frustrated Mozart no end, as passionate about his Masonic life as he was.

When the Queen gives the knife to Pamina, it's not to be taken literally as attempted murder. It symbolizes the movement afoot in Mozart's community to curtail Freemasonry and prevent it from growing. And when Sarastro, near the opera's finale, dispatches the Queen, the Three Ladies and his own renegade employee Monostatos to "eternal darkness", we must remind ourselves of the meaning of "darkness".

They aren't dead; they merely remain in ignorance. Mozart understood that, just as some doubters of Freemasonry might be capable of changing their minds (like Tamino), there would always be some who remained blind to the "truth" of the altruistic and idealistic aims of the Masons. They would never "get it".

But now... just maybe... you do? We all have a really important lesson to take away from this in the age of social media, Facebook, Twitter and all the rest.

Does it make your blood boil when you see rumors spread on the Internet platform of your choice about the politician you think is a good guy? Especially when you know for a fact that the accusations about him/her have been documented to be completely falsle? We've all gone through that, regardless of our individual politics. That's because we live in the Age of Mis-information. Have you ever looked up a rumor on the website snopes.com to verify it's truth or lack thereof? Have you ever used that website to set a friend or relative straight about a rumor they'd posted online? 

If only Queenie had looked up "priesthood of Isis and Osiris" online at snopes, she would have had a big ol' attitude adjustment. When Tamino encounters the Speaker upon his initital attempt to enter the Temple, our hero repeats the false rumors he heard from the Queen. The Speaker responds: "What is your reason for believing this? What proof is there of what you say?", to which Tamino can only respond with hearsay. 

So you see, Tamino symbolizes that sort of educated, virtuous Austrian man who IS capable of changing his mind when presented with the Truth. And so, I suspect, are you.

The verdict? NOT GUILTY BY REASON OF IGNORANCE!

Magic Flute: the masterpiece almost no one "gets"

Mozart as drawn by Doris Stock in 1789

The Magic Flute is a weird opera to wrap your brain around. For such a popular crowd favorite, an opera that traditionally does good box office, it draws a lot of fire even from confirmed opera-lovers. Granted, any audience will have a percentage who wallow in the attractiveness of the score, who thrill to the sublime moments, tap their toes to the tuneful numbers, giggle at Papageno's shenanigans and simply enjoy the spectacle of it all. Many of those folks, I suspect, just choose to ignore the more baffling aspects of libretto and music and focus on "the good parts".

Others are not so generous.

Here is a round-up of the standard criticisms aimed at Mozart's epic Singspiel:

• "The characters are such a disappointment, especially in comparison with the gallery of complex, fully developed, three-dimensional characters encountered in The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni. I mean, Tamino is a handsome prince who falls in love with a girl just by looking at her portrait? And her mother is a fairy queen who asks the prince to rescue her daughter from an evil wizard? Give me a break. These aren't real people at all - they're cartoons. Stick-figures. 
• It's the worst libretto in history. Mozart must have been desperate for money to accept it. It's like a badly-written fairy tale that doesn't even make sense. Illogical, inconsistent, full of boring parts, and a lot of the jokes are really sophomoric. 
• It's a children's opera, right? A merry bird-man, a dragon, and forest creatures that dance to a magic flute? Well, I'm a grown-up. Give me Aida, thanks.
• This is an opera that can't decide what kind of opera it is. Silliness alternates with some sort of boring quasi-religious ceremonial crap that no one's interested in. Needs a red pencil worse than bad.
• It's racist. Monostatos is usually portrayed as a black man. Guess which character is depicted trying to rape the nice lilly-white princess? Yup, that would be Monostatos. Bah.
• It's sexist. These supposedly noble priests are misogynists, saying horrible things about women. Bah.
• And what is the deal with that weird duet for two priests that souinds like a chorale prelude by Bach when he was feeling particularly constipated??

So what's the answer? Was Mozart too broke and sick to give a damn any more? Was he reduced to taking a racist, sexist, illogical, shoddy, cartoonish story and providing it with the best music he could under the circumstances?

If you have ever expressed any or all of these reservations about this opera, generally included among the composer's "masterworks", then please read the next several blog posts carefully.

Your attitude just may get adjusted, big-time.

VERY FEW people who come to The Magic Flute have any clue as to what Mozart's objectives were; what he was trying to achieve; in short, what it all means.

Once understsood, every possible objection melts away into insignificance and becomes moot. That's because the entire opera is symbolic; it's all an allegory. Take it at face value, like Figaro, and you end up with a skewed perspective, regardless of whether or not you enjoy it. Every word of the libretto is symbolic. Every bar of the score is symbolic. The "characters" are not people at all; they are symbols. 

And it all has to do with the life-event that transformed the last half-dozen or so years of Mozart's life: his acceptance into a Viennese Masonic lodge. This happened in 1784, and it dramatically altered his view of himself and of life in general. Freemasonry filled a void in Mozart's life. After years of being treated with disrespect in his court position in Salzburg and the Archbishop Colloredo in Vienna, Freemasonry finally provided the opportunity to be regarded as an equal by educated men: scientists, aristocrats, educators and the like. He was indeed a "born-again Mason", a reference that's actually quite appropriate, since candidates for membereship underwent a symbolic "death", leaving behind their old secular way of life in favor of this sacred fraternal order. 

The trouble was that, by the late 1780'a (Mozart joined up in 1784), the tide of public opinion was beginning to turn against Freemasonry in and around Vienna. Emperor Joseph II, perhaps fearing a move by Masons to grab political power, slashed the number of lodges and set a tight cap on total membership. Freemasonry was (and more or less is still) a secret society; their initiation rites and ceremonies were strictly hidden from the rest of society. Human nature being what it is, non-members began harboring dark suspicions of what went on behind those closed doors, regarding Masons much as we think of cults in our times.

As we'll point out in this series of posts, The Magic Flute was Mozart's attempt to -just slightly! - pull back the curtain and demonstrate (if symbolically), the benign and high-minded benevolence of Masonic beliefs and ideals. The music demonstrates his passionate devotion to those beliefs and ideals. To preserve a modicum of secrecy, the opera avoids direct mentions of anything Masonic, instead depicting a temple of the ancient Egyptian gods Isis and Osiris.

So if you find yourself wondering how all the criticisms above can be addressed via Masonic symbolism, check back over the next few weeks. (Blog clarification: I, Your Humble Blogger, am not a Freemason and am in no way advocating or proselytizing for Masonry. All discussions of Freemasonry will have the sole purpose of shedding light on Mozart and The Magic Flute.)

The 8 most annoying things about opera supertitles

Not good when this suddenly appears...

Let me assure you right off the bat: when it comes to supertitles in live performances of opera, I, Your Humble Blogger, am not a snob. I think understanding what the characters are singing about as they sing it is the single greatest advancement in opera appreciation in a century.

HOWEVER.....  there are times when they drive even the most patient aficionado a little nuts. Here are my top eight supertitle-fail scenarios. Why eight, you ask? Because, um, er.....

....I couldn't seem to come up with ten. You wouldn't want unworthy filler, would you? You expect more from a quality blog like this, right? I thought so.

AND HERE THEY ARE:

8. When a character sings lines containing 116 syllables and the supertitle just says "Yes, at once".

7.  When there's a musical number - aria, duet, chorus, whatever - and the supertitles chug along for half of it and then just go blank for the rest of the piece, leaving you to infer that those same words are being repeated.

6.  When the next slide of a supertitle contains several lines, the last of which is a funny punch-line, causing the audience to laugh five seconds before the character actually says it.

5.  When there's a complex passage in which 5 or 6 people are singing more or less simultaneously, meaning the supertitle-guy has to decide which lines to show and which won't make the cut for lack of space, with no ability to delineate which character is saying the lines that DID make the cut.

4. When artists on stage are singing the original text set by the composer, often in a flowery formal linguistic style ("Thou art like unto the goddess of the moon") but the supertitle translation is reduced to current slang in order to increase "relevancy" ("I really dig you!").

3. When repetitions of text ARE displayed, but employ the abbreviation "etc." ("We shall rejoice forever more etc.") People don't really ever sing "etc.".

2. When the super-title operator's mind wanders and falls behind by three or four slides, creating stress for the audience as they wonder if he/she has suffered a health emergency.

1.  When a technical glitch occurs, causing the Windows logo to appear in the middle of a death scene.

Falstaff and the greatest operatic ensemble EVER

In today's post I want to break down the best moment in the best scene of the best opera ever: Verdi's Falstaff. (Substitute "my favorite" for "the best" in the above sentence if you have a problem with the declarative nature of that statement.) It's the big ensemble in Act fao2, scene 2; the scene in which Ford and his posse of The Men Of Windsor (i.e. the men's chorus), in the midst of a frenzied search for Falstaff, hear a kiss from behind a screen in Ford's home. Ford is convinced that behind that screen, his wife Alice is making passionate love with Sir John, confirming his worst suspicion: Alice has betrayed him!

Verdi

He doesn't realize that the smooch actually was produced by his daughter Nannetta and her boy-toy Fenton, the boyfriend Daddy Ford can't stand. Falstaff, by this point, is cowering in a large wicker laundry basket in the corner, covered with a week's worth of soiled underwear.

At this moment, the moment when Ford points to the screen like a bird dog pointing at a duck and hisses "C'e!" ("There!"), there begins one of those concerted ensembles which crop up from time to time in opera. This particular ensemble reveals Verdi's genius at its wittiest and most brilliant. Remember, Dear Readers. what's true in the theater is true in opera: dying is easy; comedy is hard. (You can see a staged performance of this scene by clicking on this link and jumping to the 1:19:23 mark.)

What you need to know right away is that Verdi's ensemble represents more than just the creation of a truly funny musical number. Beyond that, the 80-year-old composer took the opportunity to poke fun at one of Italian opera's hoariest cliches, a cliche in which he himself had indulged on more than one occasion, as in and Il Trovatore, to name one. This cliche consists of bringing two enemies together for a dramatic confrontation, often with swords drawn. While the chorus gasps in four-part horror and the lead soprano frets, the foes (usually a tenor and a baritone) bellow dire threats utilizing phrases resembling the following:

"Now is the hour of your death!"

"Your blood shall flow like a torrent!"

"You shall taste the tip of my sabre!"

"Prepare to meet your maker!"

"My breast bursts with rage!"

This sort of thing goes on for anywhere from five to eight minutes in an elaborate formal musical number consisting of, say, an orchestral introduction, an "A" theme, a contrasting "B" theme, and repeated choral refrains. Meanwhile, you (sitting out in the audience or listening on your stereo) want to scream at the lot of them:

FOR THE LOVE OF MIKE, STOP SINGING ABOUT IT AND JUST DO IT ALREADY!!!

In the course of teaching opera appreciation to thousands of adults over the past decade, I've learned that the sheer illogic of men vowing to kill each other "any second" while failing to git 'er done is a real impediment to many people's enjoyment of the art form. "It's so unrealistic", they point out with outraged sensibilities, "that would never happen in real life!"

Some fourteen years before Falstaff, Gilbert and Sullivan mocked this sort of thing in Pirates of Penzance. A group of policemen sing at length about an impending assault on the pirates with multiple repetitions of "Forward on the foe; we go, we go, we go" and so on, only to be interrupted by Major General Stanley's complaint: "Yes, but you don't go."

It turns out that Giuseppe Verdi himself, in his final opera, was willing to admit that such "do-nothing" ensembles are in fact sort of ridiculous. I LOVE it that the composer winks at us and, in the finale of Act 2, scene 2, deliberately parodies himself as well as such predecessors as Donizetti (think the sextet in Lucia di Lammermoor) and others by writing the king of all "do-nothing" ensembles. "We all know" Verdi is saying, "these ensembles don't make sense. So I'm going to poke a little fun at them."

The ensemble begins with Ford and Caius whispering threats at, they assume, Falstaff as they face the screen while pizzicato strings choreograph their stealthy tip-toeing. "I'll thrash you!" "I'll smash you!" and on in that general vein.

Meanwhile, Quickly and Meg are nervously standing guard over the laundry basket, surreptitiously singing a nervous staccato melody expressing anxiety about future developments while poor Sir John emits an occasional groan or request for air.

The third layer in the musical texture consists of the frisky lovers who are getting hot and heavy behind the screen, whispering sweet nothings in vocal lines that soar out above the adults' sotto voce utterances.

Ford, meanwhile, is engaged in a level of military strategy that suggests the invasion of Normandy more than tearing down a screen that's a couple of yards in front of him, barking out orders and strategies: "You men form my left wing; you others flank me on the right!"

Verdi, in sustaining these three levels of musical activity, has a task similar to the guy in a vaudeville act who has to keep several plates spinning on sticks without crashing to the floor. The various layers of vocal activity are all separate from each other, but must mesh together perfectly to form one musical unit. Not so easy, pals o' mine! Yet in performance, every component and affect is so crystal-clear that translations or super-titles are hardly needed.

What may not be apparent to non-musicians is how each muttered threat coming from Ford's men, which sound spontaneous and random in performance, are actually dictated by precise rhythmic placement. Music is the art that happens in time; it was Verdi's job, sitting at his desk with pen and manuscript paper, to assign a moment in time to each "I'll thrash you!" in a way calculated to make it sound improvised out of time. The mind boggles.

Another aspect deserving our admiration has to do with point of view. You know, operatic composers have at their command all the devices of fiction used by novelists: symbolism, metaphor, foreshadowing, and especially point of view. Just as a writer can choose first-person or third-person in narrating a story, so a composer can allow music to reflect characters as they see themselves, or as others see them.

Finally, notice how all the grown-ups appear foolish, but the two lovebird teenagers are presented sympathetically. Ford, as irrational in his pathological jealousy as Othello, sinking to a new low in the annals of lunatic husband behavior; Falstaff, so delusionally vain in the first place, now reduced to a quivering mound of cowardice; the Merry Wives having indulged in a level of scheming worthy of Lucy Riccardo and Ethel Mertz at their zaniest. 

But Fenton and Nannetta are the opposite of foolish. In their innocence and mutual infatuation they are charming and adorable. The reason? In Fenton, the aging Verdi saw himself wooing his first love; the child sweetheart he married: Margherita Barezzi. And in Nannetta, Margherita came to life once again. Verdi's first wife, whom he'd wed fifty-seven years earlier, left him a widow when she died of encephylitis after less than four years of marriage. Their two infant children had preceded her in death.

For the next several decades, this tragedy was re-lived on the stage in opera after opera from Verdi's pen. A gallery of lovers, all doomed, all passionate but unhappy. Violetta and Alfredo, Leonora and Manrico, Radames and Aida, Otello and Desdemona, and dozens of others. Death awaited them all --- until Falstaff.

In his final take on romantic love, Giuseppe Verdi found that he had purged all his demons and exhausted the deep reservoirs of bitterness and anger simmering in his tragedies. Rather than venting over the family he'd lost, he was able now to remember the happiness he'd shared with Margherita and create a loving tribute to her. This bespeaks a level of personal integrity and strength of character I find truly inspiring.

Remember, as you enjoy Falstaff: Nannetta is Margherita. It's why you and I fall in love with her as well. Is it any wonder she is accorded the honor, in Act 3, scene 3, of Verdi's last aria for soprano; the only stand-alone aria in the entire piece? 

Pretty good ensemble, wouldn't you say? Poking fun at illogical operatic ensembles while simultaneously composing the greatest one of all. A good day's work.