Mozart's The Magic Flute

This site is under construction and was last revised on:  21 November 2011

Purpose of this Website

In my opinion, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte) is the greatest work of esoteric music ever written. In accordance with the teachings of one of Mozart's mentors, Ignaz von Born (1742-1791), the opera was written to be understood at three levels of meaning. These three levels may be defined as follows:

1)  an Exoteric or popular level;

2) a Mesoteric or Masonic level; and

3) an Esoteric or Rosicrucian level.

At the highest or esoteric level, the opera is an alchemical allegory, i.e., an 18th century Enlightenment version of the ancient Egyptian Mysteries concerning the achievement of illumination, a higher state of consciousness which the 20th century "Fourth Way" teacher, G. I. Gurdjieff (1867-1949), would call objective consciousness.

The main purpose of this website is to explore the possible meanings of Die Zauberflöte at all three levels, but with particular emphasis on the esoteric interpretation.

Contents

Notable Quotations Concerning "the Magic Flute"

Alchemical imagery is one way of telling ... the journey of the mythic hero, in terms of getting the gold out of the base matter. The gold is captured in base matter: prima materia. And though the alchemical cooking and whatever else they're doing, pouring things in and so forth, the gold is brought out. And the gold is your own spiritual life that is clouded in the pure matter of your physical interests. The operation of the mythic meditation is to bring out, elicit, the gold of your spiritual character. You have to move into this slowly, and that's what ordeals are. The ordeal is a gradual clarification and purification of your life.

-- Joseph Campbell, The Hero's Journey (1990).

The Magic Flute is the standard Joseph Campbell hero's journey, and there is this duality of the natural, wild world versus the regimented world of the temple.

-- Nadya Geras-Carson, Theatrical Set Designer, Eugene Opera.

The Magic Flute is ... not just an allegory of the eighteenth-century struggle between Catholicism and Freemasonry; it is an imaginative description of something much older and more important – of humankind’s primeval progression from nature to culture, from unreason to reason, and from matriarchy to patriarchy. Man’s first deities, so far as we can tell, were not father-gods but mother-goddesses. In our oldest mythologies, Mother Earth antedates Father Sky. Gaia is older than Uranus. The first social groups were familial and tribal. Taboos, spells, and magic were important for them. Only when, inevitably, there was contact and conflict with outsiders was there a slow, painful movement towards larger communities. Magic was then replaced with ritual. Taboo gave way to morality. The family circle recognized the rights of a wider civilization. And the mother-goddess yielded to a father god.

This may be thought to be one of the great evolutionary moments in the pre-history of the race. The memory of it was preserved for us, not by historians, but by myth-makers and, in classic Athens, by dramatists. If we scale this pre-history down to a narrative level, we have a surprisingly workable analysis of Mozart’s opera. The hero-myth is a fashionable study again, thanks to the renewed interest in Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. In their writings, the mythic hero goes on a quest for his father, which is ultimately the male’s quest for his own self. If he is fortunate, he is joined in his travels by a companion of his own sex but of a different age or race or caste or level of sophistication, who represents everything that the hero himself is not. Jung calls this figure the shadow, potentially dangerous to the psyche of the hero unless won over. But if he is won over, the shadow is helpful to the hero, as Tonto is to the Lone Ranger, or Jim to Huck Finn, or Sancho Panza to Don Quixote, or Pylades to Orestes, or Patroclus to Achilles, or Papageno to Tamino.

-- Father Owen Lee, The Metropolitan Opera Guild.

Many scientists, even though music lovers, are probably unaware of the intimate links between the early history of the sciences and Mozart's last opera and perhaps Magnum Opus, The Magic Flute. Over two hundred years ago, in the year of his early death in 1791 at the age of 35, Mozart and the impresario and actor-manager Emanuel Schikaneder, collaborated to create one of the best-loved works in the operatic repertoire, but one which has provided numerous puzzles of interpretation and meaning ever since.

The work is seen by many commentators as occupying a pivotal and influential position at or near the transition from the classical movement to the romantic movement in the arts. The last two decades of the 18th Century also saw the establishment of scientific mineralogy, chemistry and geology following the demise of alchemy and speculative Hermetic philosophy over the same period. Above all, the Enlightenment at the close of the 18th Century saw the breakdown of the old social order of the ancien regime and the establishment of republics in what had been monarchies in former times.

No less mysterious than the actual meaning of this magical opera is the question of whether Mozart and Schikaneder might have had the assistance of other collaborators. It is suggested here that the opera fundamentally is about the alchemical process, that is about what was at that time the contemporary, but declining scientific paradigm. It is also suggested that the creation of the work may well be a collaborative effort between several people including scientists and that the storyline may well have been strongly influenced by contemporary scientific research on amalgamation procedures. ...

– Alfred Whittaker, British Geological Survey, Lecture to the Austrian Mineralogical Society in Vienna on 13 October 1998.

Die Zauberflöte has transcended its makers and time itself. ... The way in which the makers of the opera have managed to marry ingenuity with creativity is astonishing.  On the stage in Die Zauberflöte there are three temples, of Nature, Reason and Wisdom.  In retrospect  I now know that before I embarked on my journey to the roots of Die Zauberflöte, I had mainly listened to the opera in the Temple of Nature as it were, that while performing the study I enjoyed it in the Temple of Reason, and I hope that in the future I will one day be able to experience the "canticum canticorum" [song of songs] in the Temple of Wisdom.

-- M.F.M. van den Berk, Die Zauberflöte. An Alchemical Allegory, pages 508-509, first published in 2004.

We are told that Mozart's Magic Flute embodies some of his beliefs as a Freemason. If so, we might have in this opera a translation into poetic and musical imagery of the theme of the good religion of the Egyptians, of the mysteries of Isis and Osiris into which the good are initiated, of the magical atmosphere through which human souls make their way to a Hermetic-Egyptian salvation.  The name "Zarastro" of the head priest would reflect the equation of Zoroaster with Hermes Trismegistus in Renaissance genealogies of wisdom.

-- Frances A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, pages 415-416, first published in 1964.

"It is enough that the crowd would find pleasure in seeing the spectacle; at the same time, its high significance will not escape the initiates."

-- Comment made by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe regarding The Magic Flute.

Nothing can be said here about Mozart's brilliance that has not been said a thousand times before. He was irrefutably the greatest musical genius in his time, perhaps of all times. His short and turbulent life embraced the latter part of the eighteenth century, a time marred by wars, revolutions and overall political chaos in Europe. The quiet, peaceful sanctuary of a Masonic lodge would understandably impress and inspire a man of Mozart's temperament. Interestingly, there was a division within the Austrian government regarding Freemasonry at that time. The lodge of which Francis of Lorraine was Grand Master was closed by order of his wife, the Empress Maria Theresa. However, Joseph II, the enlightened son of the Empress was a firm believer in religious tolerance and looked benevolently upon the Order for most of his reign. It has been suggested that the characters in The Magic Flute represented real people who were involved in Viennese Freemasonry; the prince was the Emperor Joseph II., the princess the Austrian people, the high priest supposedly represented one Ignatz von Born, head of the Viennese lodge and the Queen of the Night was the Empress Maria Theresa who organized the raid on her husband's lodge. Of course this is all speculation, but it does have interesting possibilities. ...

Egyptian mythology ... permeates the opera. ... a kind of musical worship ...  [of] Isis and Osiris, ... gods of Egypt's Old Kingdom.

The Magic Flute was a 'Singspiel', that is, a musical comedy with some serious parts whose main attractions were impressive stage machinery and lavish special effects. (There are 13 elaborate scene changes in all). The libretto, which underwent several changes, was in the main written by Mozart's good friend and fellow Mason Johann Josef Schikaneder. At the time he met Mozart, Schikaneder was already an accomplished writer of such genres. Posterity has often been unkind to this man. He is often referred to as a buffoon, spendthrift and mediocre artist. Although we cannot defend the first two accusations, the latter is in fact quite untrue. Schnikaneder was one of the most famous Hamlets and King Lears of his day, a fact which prompted Joseph II to call Schnikaneder's theatrical company from Pressburg to Vienna.

At first, the libretto of the opera seems almost childish and resembles an absurd fairy tale which another composer may have thought most inappropriate to set to music. Mozart however, realizing the possibility of combining the ridiculous with the sublime, wedded the words to such marvellous music that the final work of art was, and is, an unforgettable experience for opera lovers everywhere. He combines the four cardinal virtues of Wisdom, Fortitude, Temperance and Justice with the three Christian virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity to such an extent as to create a musical masterpiece which is cosmic in its depth. At its core burns Mozart's belief in the vital power and importance of love which triumphs over the fear of death at all levels of humanity.

-- Gerlinde Sabathy-Judd, University of Western Ontario, Newsletter of the Grand Lodge of Canada, Province of Ontario, Volume 6, Number 3, Winter 1987.

Introduction

W. A. Mozart in 1790, Oil Painting by German Artist Johann Georg Edlinger (1741-1819)

The opera entitled "The Magic Flute" was first performed in Vienna on 30 September 1791; it was composed by W. A. Mozart when he was just 35 years old. Unfortunately, this performance occurred just two months before Mozart's death, which occurred on 05 December of that same year.  The work was initially advertised as a Grand Opera but it really was a German Singspiel, combining a German libretto, simple folk tunes and classic operatic compositions.

Most music historians believe that the opera was constructed to present more than just one level of meaning. I believe that it was intended to be understood at three different levels. 

Exoteric (Popular) Level - A Confused Fairy Tale

Set against an ancient Egyptian background, on an "exoteric" or popular level, the opera appears to be based on a rather confused fairy tale. At this level of interpretation, the first act of the work seems to be somewhat inconsistent with the second act.

Mesoteric (Masonic) Level - A Political Satire

On a middle or "mesoteric" level, the opera could be considered a Masonic political satire. Mozart became a Master Mason in 1784. He also enjoyed a relatively close relationship with the founder of the most important Masonic lodge in Vienna, Ignaz von Born (1742-1791). At that time, von Born was considered to be the greatest living expert in ancient Egyptian symbolism, which was then being widely studied among European Freemasons. His writings were probably the inspirational source for Emanuel Schickaneder's libretto, which Mozart transformed into the opera "The Magic Flute."  From the Masonic standpoint, the opera represented almost the "last hurrah" of Freemasonry in the Austrian Empire. In January 1795, the Masonic Lodges were totally banned in Austria by the new emperor, Francis II. This ban lasted until the fall of the Hapsburg monarchy in 1918.

Esoteric (Rosicrucian) Level - An Alchemical Allegory

In my view, a truly great work of art possesses value and significance that is not in any way restricted to the era in which it was created. The Magic Flute is one such timeless work. Janos Liebner, the former Artistic Director of the Berlin Opera, once wrote:

The assessment of The Magic Flute presented at this website is the one that I have seen in my own mirror and which has been filtered through my own unique personality and essence.

Organizational Structure of the Opera

Mozart divided "The Magic Flute" into 21 musical parts (musical sets or arrangements of musical instruments) plus the Overture. The following table shows the connection between these 21 parts and the Acts and Scenes set forth in the libretto. I have also related those two structures with the musical tracks of the 3 CD recording of the opera (K. V. 620) performed by the New Opera Academy of the Netherlands in the summer of 2003. This production of the opera was unique in that it exactly followed the original score and libretto as written and performed by Mozart and Schikaneder in the autumn of 1791. Total running time for this historically accurate version is 173 minutes, 20 seconds. The 21 parts directly correspond to the 21 steps of the full alchemical transmutation process. These parts may also be associated with the 21 numberd trumps of the major arcana of the tarot deck. The unnumbered card, the joker or fool, corresponds to the role of Mercury in the alchemical process and thus may affect or facilitate any and/or all of the 21 alchemical steps. Mozart's opera, just like the major arcana of the tarot deck, constitutes an alchemical allegory of the alchemical transmutation process.

Die Zauberflöte by the Numbers

At the highest level, all of the major esoteric belief systems of the Western World are governed by a philosophical system known today as Neoplatonism. A schematic diagram showing the relationship of Neoplatonism with the various Western mystical traditions is in preparation and will be added to this site at a later date.

Neoplatonism was originally promulgated as a complete philosophical system by Plato (427-347 B.C.) in the fourth century B.C. Several centuries later, during the third, fourth and fifth centuries A.D., the system was reinterpreted and repromulgated in the writings of the philosophers Plotinus (205-270 A.D.), Porphyry (234-305 A.D.), Iamblichus (245-325 A.D.) and Proclus (410-485 B.C.). This Platonic philosophical system contained within it four major intellectual disciplines known collectively as the Quadrivium; they are as follows: 1) Arithmetic (the study of number by itself), 2) Geometry (the study of number in space),  3) Music (the study of number in time), and Astronomy (the study of number in both space and time). These four disciplines all involve numbers, hence number theory may be said to be the key to the explanation of virtually all things in the Cosmos.

In Neoplatonism there are three hypostases (levels of spiritual reality) and four dimensions associated with the physical cosmos (material reality).

The three hypostases are:

1st Hypostasis - the "One" (the "Idea of the Good");

2nd Hypostasis - the Intelligible World" (Nous); and

3rd Hypostasis - "World Soul."

On a metaphorically "lower level" than the hypostases, is the physical, sensory world of "things" consisting of four cosmic dimensions. These four dimensions are symbolized by what the Greek philosopher Empedocles called the "four roots of reality" - Fire, Air Water and Earth.

It should be noted that the three hypostases and the material world should not be thought of as separate entities. They together are a single unified entity, all parts of which are essentially coterminous with each other. Everything has its appropriate “place” in this hierarchy, the presence of the "Good" is both immediate and accessible; indeed, this presence of the "Good" is as close to each "thing" as it is to intellect or soul. Neoplatonism should be seen as a precise system of thought that attempts to meditate upon, read the signs of, and represent how, all beings are derived from and relate to the "One." Each "thing" may be examined and explicated based on its dependence, open-endedness, and radical interconnectedness without losing sight of the multidimensional ordering of the universe (both sensible and intelligible). It is important to recognize that even very simple things, that have no intellect or life but only bare existence, are all emanations from the "One" - the 1st hypostasis!

Freemasonry and Alchemy, as practiced in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries, were the children of Platonism and/or Neoplatonism. It therefore follows that both Freemasonry and Alchemy involve a great deal of number symbolism, particularly symbols associated with the numbers 3 and 4. Accordingly, W. A. Mozart and Emanuel Schickaneder found it necessary to incorporate a substantial amount of number symbolism into Die Zauberflöte.

References Used in the Development of this Site

1)  Peter Branscombe, W. A. Mozart: Die Zauberflöte, Cambridge Opera Handbooks (Cambridge University Press: 1991).

2)  Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Third Edition (Joseph Campbell Foundation: 2008).

3)  Peter Levenda, Stairway to Heaven (2008).

4)  M. F. M. van den Berk, The Magic Flute (Brill: 2004).

5)  Ignaz Edler von Born, “Über die Mysterien der Aegyptie”, Journal für Freymaurer (1784), pages 17-132.

6)  Otto Erich Deutsch, Mozart: a Documentary Biography (Stanford University Press: 1965).

7)  Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, Die Metaphysic in Connection mit der Chemie (1770).

8)  Alfred Whittaker, British Geological Survey, Minerology and The Magic Flute, Lecture to the Austrian Mineralogical Society, 13 October 1998, Vienna.

9)  Mozarteum Foundation Salzburg, Mozart's Library - Internet Site.

10) Cicero, Somnium Scipionis (The Dream of Scipio), Translation by W. D. Pearman (published 1883).

11)  Antoine Court de Gébelin, Le Monde primitif, analysé et comparé avec le monde moderne, Volume VIII, "Du Jeu des Tarots" (Paris: 1781).