Magic Flute - An Opera of Threesomes
- MusiCritique0
- Dec 29, 2025
- 4 min read
A timeless story :
Making of a man, story of threesomes, eternal battle between good and bad and the power of love, as the winner !
If Mozart's Magic Flute ("Die Zauberflöte") was to be summarised in one sentence, that would be it. Or for a more contemporary reference :
What if Harry Potter was happening in the heist of French Revolution?
On December 17th, 2025 I was blessed by having the chance of watching the best and last Mozart opera in Germany, in the country of its original language, with its historical staging, in Berlin.
August Everding’s production is unique for its reconstruction of Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s 1816 set design for what was then the Berlin Court Opera on Unter den Linden – including the legendary starry sky for the Queen of the Night, which has become an icon of scenography and continues to enchant audiences.
Conducted by Giuseppe Mentuccia, Queen of the Night was performed by Maria Kokareva, Sarastro by René Pape and Tamino by Andrés Moreno García. The opera lasts approximately 3 hours in 2 acts. I should admit that in the age of 1 minute long mini-series, sitting still and watching anything for hours is a challenge, even for opera lovers like me. However, as always, patience pays off. At the end of the night, I took away not only beautiful music to stir a variety of emotions to enrich the soul, but also a captivating story that inspire people even today with me.
It's the timeless story of making of a man that we see in many other magnificent work, including The Iliad of Homer, Wagner's Parsifal, Tolkien's Lord of The Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Matrix... Tamino, a naive soul, a lost prince, found by 3 witches and missioned by great wizard Queen of the Night, to rescue her daughter, Princess Pamina, from the evil priest Sarastro. Yet, once he arrives Sarastro's temple of Love and meets him, he realize the the true evil was Queen of the Night.
The opera is a comedy in the age of French Revolution. Premiered in Vienna in 1791, it remains to be one of the pearls of German operas. Die Zauberflöte has the greatest variety of orchestral color that the eighteenth century was to know.
Libretto is written by Emanuel Schikaneder, many scholars also acknowledge an influence of Freemasonry. They put individual and worldly love above the religious unworldly believes. It's a manifestation of the power of the individual and love against the church and the royalty and the celebration of the victory of humanity!
The opera is also influenced by Enlightenment philosophy and in this context, they believe Roman Catholic Empress Maria Theresa is represented as the Queen of the Night whom was defeated at the end.
The number three is highly significant in Freemasonry and there are many references to this threesomes in the opera.
The overture, begins with three-chords representing the threesomes in the opera: the Priests of the Temple of Wisdom, the three quests, three witches, three boys and three slaves. Even the three stages of Tamino : first as his natural form, than challenged self and transformed as a new man.
In the Sarastro's temple, Antique Egyptian gods Isis and Osiris are worshipped.
Osiris, lord of the dead and of rebirth. His green skin symbolizes regeneration, vegetation and fertility. Isis resurrects her slain brother and husband Osiris, and produces and protects his heir, Horus. She was believed to help the dead enter the afterlife.
Choosing gods before Christianity is a significant secular reference, parallel with the soul of the time. In the opera, Tamino and Pamina may be the projections of Osiris and Isis as they helped each other to cross the different levels of challenges.
The famous Ring Cycle, first immortalized by Wagner in the opera, later by Tolkien in the novel, Magic Flute has powers similar to the Ring. The flute gives powers to Tamino while he fights with the monsters and rescue Pamina.
One should think opera as the cinema of the time. Wide audiences living in the cities and could afford a ticket was looking for the new operas and they were one of the main entertainment of the public. They used all kinds of art, music, literature, painting and visual effects and were mass productions. In 20th century, it was replaced by cinema which has larger possibilities for visual creation and storytelling and can be distributed even to living rooms. Despite, opera, using the live music as the main element with complex human stories, still has a place in the core of humanity, especially the masterpieces like Magic Flute!
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