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COPYRIGHT 2004 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
In the fall of 1791, Mozart was a sick man who felt his life slipping away. Still, he was intensely happy. The motive for his joy was "The Magic Flute," which had opened at the end of September, in Vienna. Representatives of the musical elite were hailing the opera as perhaps the richest of Mozart's career. Antonio Salieri told his sometime rival that it was "worthy of being played at the greatest festival for the greatest monarchs." Members of the brotherhood of Masons smiled among themselves as they recognized a kindred spirit at work: the tale of handsome young Tamino, who passes a series of tests set by the mysterious magus Sarastro, was both a parable and a parody of the rituals of Freemasonry. Yet "The Magic Flute" wasn't a proper opera at all; it was a Singspiel, a hybrid genre akin to musical theatre. The staging aimed to astonish the eyes: one visitor reported seeing "a thousand grotesque forms." Tickets cost between seven and seventeen kreuzer--about what you'd spend on a round of beers after the show. Mozart had made his imperial art democratic, and he exulted in the many-sidedness of his appeal....
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