SARASTRO, High Priest of Isis _Bass_ TAMINO, an Egyptian Prince _Tenor_ PAPAGENO, a bird-catcher _Baritone_ ASTROFIAMMANTE, Queen of the Night _Soprano_ PAMINA, her daughter _Soprano_ MONOSTATOS, a Moor, chief slave of the Temple _Baritone_ PAPAGENA _Soprano_
Three Ladies-in-Waiting to the Queen; Three Youths of the Temple; Priests, Priestesses, Slaves, etc.
_Time_--Egypt, about the reign of Rameses I.
_Place_--Near and at the Temple of Isis, Memphis.
The libretto to "The Magic Flute" is considered such a jumble of nonsense that it is as well to endeavour to extract some sense from it.
Emanuel Johann Schikaneder, who wrote it with the aid of a chorister named Gieseke, was a friend of Mozart and a member of the same Masonic Lodge. He also was the manager of a theatrical company and had persuaded Mozart to compose the music to a puppet show for him. He had selected for this show the story of "Lulu" by Liebeskind, which had appeared in a volume of Oriental tales brought out by Wieland under the title of "Dschinnistan." In the original tale a wicked sorcerer has stolen the daughter of the Queen of Night, who is restored by a Prince by means of magic. While Schikaneder was busy on his libretto, a fairy story by Perinet, music by Wenzel Müller, and treating of the same subject, was given at another Viennese theatre. Its great success interfered with Schikaneder's original plan.
At that time, however, freemasonry was a much discussed subject. It had been interdicted by Maria Theresa and armed forces were employed to break up the lodges. As a practical man Schikaneder saw his chance to exploit the interdicted rites on the stage. Out of the wicked sorcerer he made _Sarastro_, the sage priest of Isis. The ordeals of _Tamino_ and _Pamina_ became copies of the ceremonials of freemasonry. He also laid the scene of the opera in Egypt, where freemasonry believes its rites to have originated. In addition to all this Mozart's beautiful music ennobled the libretto even in its dull and unpoetical passages, and lent to the whole a touch of the mysterious and sacred. "The muse of Mozart lightly bears her century of existence," writes a French authority, of this score.
Because of its supposed relation to freemasonry, commentators have identified the vengeful _Queen of the Night_ with Maria Theresa, and _Tamino_ with the Emperor. _Pamina_, _Papageno_, and _Papagena_ are set down as types of the people, and _Monostatos_ as the fugleman of monasticism.