Die Zauberflöte at The State Opera

Mozart wrote his final operatic work, to Emanuel Schikaneder’s libretto, in 1791, several months before his untimely death. The magical fairy-tale is replete with imagination, humour, as well as philosophy. The characters of Prince Tamino, Princess Pamina, the sage Sarastro – master of the realm of light – the evil Queen of the Night and, above all, the merry birch-catcher Papageno have enchanted audiences worldwide for more than two centuries, constantly giving rise to the same questions: Is Die Zauberflöte a glorification of Masonry? Does it encapsulate Mozart’s credo of Good prevailing over Evil? Or is it “merely” a fantasy fairy-tale intended for the audiences of the people’s Theater auf der Wieden, managed by the impresario Emanuel Schikaneder?

It was none other than Schikaneder who submitted to Mozart the idea of composing Die Zauberflöte, since he knew that the visitors to his theatre above all longed for plays abounding in magic… No wonder then that the opera’s ambiguity has led staging teams to various symbolical interpretations. At the State Opera, Die Zauberflöte is a magical and mysterious fairy-tale that poetically and concisely expresses Order’s victory over Chaos, as well as the fact that decency and morality are the highest mission of society. The State Opera’s production of Die Zauberflöte, directed by Ladislav Štros, has earned repeated success in Japan too.