The Cambridge Companion to The Magic Flute

A comprehensive, up-to-date, resource providing an essential framework for understanding Mozart's most-performed opera and its extraordinary afterlife.

Jessica Waldoff (Edited by)

9781108446846, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 November 2023

320 pages
24.3 x 16.9 x 2.1 cm, 0.67 kg

Since its premiere in 1791, The Magic Flute has been staged continuously and remains, to this day, Mozart's most-performed opera worldwide. This comprehensive, user-friendly, up-to-date critical guide considers the opera in a variety of contexts to provide a fresh look at a work that has continued to fascinate audiences from Mozart's time to ours. It serves both as an introduction for those encountering the opera for the first time and as a treasury of recent scholarship for those who know it very well. Containing twenty-one essays by leading scholars, and drawing on recent research and commentary, this Companion presents original insights on music, dialogue, and spectacle, and offers a range of new perspectives on key issues, including the opera's representation of exoticism, race, and gender. Organized in four sections – historical context, musical analysis, critical approaches, and reception – it provides an essential framework for understanding The Magic Flute and its extraordinary afterlife.

Introduction Jessica Waldoff
Part I. Conception and Context: 1. German Opera in Mozart's Vienna Estelle Joubert
2. 'The Magic Flute's' Libretto and German Enlightenment Theater Reform Martin Nedbal
3. Emanuel Schikaneder and the Theater auf der Wieden Lisa de Alwis
4. 'The Magic Flute' in 1791 Austin Glatthorn
Part II. Music, Text, and Action: 5. Music as Stage-Craft Julian Rushton
6. Enduring Portraits: The Arias Laurel E. Zeiss
7. 'All Together, Now'? Ensembles and Choruses in 'The Magic Flute' Nicholas Marston
8. Musical Topics, Quotations, and References Mark Ferraguto
9. Instrumentation, Magical and Mundane Emily I. Dolan and Hayley Fenn
10. The Dialogue as Indispensable Catherine Coppola
11. Music, Drama and Spectacle in the Finales John Platoff
III. Approaches and Perspectives: 12. Seeking Enlightenment in Mozart's 'Magic Flute' Richard Kramer
13. Birdsong and Hieroglyphs: Exoticism and Enlightened Orientalism in 'The Magic Flute' Matthew Head
14. Partial Derivatives: Sources, Types, and Tropes in 'The Magic Flute' Thomas Bauman
15. Pamina, the Queen, and the Representation of Women Jessica Waldoff
16. Blackness and Whiteness in 'The Magic Flute' – Reflections from Shakespeare Studies Adeline Mueller
IV. Reception, Interpretation, and Influence: 17. Zauberflöte: A Cultural Phenomenon in an Age of Revolution Ian Woodfield
18. 'The Magic Flute' in Biography, Criticism, and Literature Simon P. Keefe
19. The Elusive Compositional History of 'The Magic Flute' Daniel R. Melamed
20. Staging 'The Magic Flute' Kate Hopkins
21. Ingmar Bergman's Film Version of 'The Magic Flute' Dean Duncan.

Subject Areas: Opera [AVGC9]