The Magic Flute, K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form during the time it was written that included both singing and spoken dialogue. The work premiered on 30 September 1791 at Schikaneder's theatre, the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, just two months before the composer's premature death. Still a staple of the opera repertory, its popularity was reflected by two immediate sequels, Peter Winter's Das Labyrinth oder Der Kampf mit den Elementen. Der Zauberflöte zweyter Theil (1798) and a fragmentary libretto by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe titled The Magic Flute Part Two.
The arrival of the Queen of the Night. Stage set by Karl Friedrich Schinkel for an 1815 production.
Emanuel Schikaneder, librettist of Die Zauberflöte, as Papageno
Baritone Markus Werba appearing as Papageno. He wears his pipes and carries his magic bells; both instruments are essential to the plot.
Libretto cover design by Peter Hoffer, 1959
The Magic Flute is a celebrated opera composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart employed a libretto written by his close colleague Emanuel Schikaneder, the director of the Theater auf der Wieden at which the opera premiered in the same year.. Grout and Williams describe the libretto thus:
Schikaneder, a kind of literary magpie, filched characters, scenes, incidents, and situations from others' plays and novels and with Mozart's assistance organized them into a libretto that ranges all the way from buffoonery to high solemnity, from childish faerie to sublime human aspiration – in short from the circus to the temple, but never neglecting an opportunity for effective theater along the way.
Yvain, portrayed in a 15th-century French manuscript. Unlike Tamino, he vanquishes his menacing reptile.
1805 portrait of Christoph Martin Wieland by Ferdinand Carl Christian Jagemann
A Masonic lodge meeting of Mozart's day, once thought to portray Mozart's own lodge; see Mozart and Freemasonry for discussion.