("The Labyrinth or The Struggle with the Elements. The Magic Flute's Second Part") is a "grand heroic-comic

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libre ...

" in two acts composed in 1798 by Peter von Winter to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue. The opera is a sequel of

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...

's '' The Magic Flute''.

Performance history

The opera premiered at the suburban

Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden The Theater auf der Wieden, also called the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden or the Wiednertheater, was a theater located in the then-suburban Wieden district of Vienna in the late 18th century. It existed for only 14 years (1787–1801), but duri ...

in Vienna on 12 June 1798. Schikaneder himself played Papageno, while the role of the Queen of the Night was sung by Mozart's sister-in-law Josepha Hofer-Mayer. Schikaneder was the librettist of Mozart's opera and he was considered to have been "one of the most original and most influential theatre persons of his time". Both artists were reprising their roles from ''The Magic Flute''. Alexandra Liedtke, the director of the

Salzburg Festival The Salzburg Festival (german: Salzburger Festspiele) is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer (for five weeks starting in late July) in the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Ama ...

production in 2012, interpreted the story and Schikaneder's libretto "as one fthe great fairy tales of history .. in which the emblematic and the playfulness are standing in the limelights". The opera was then also performed at the Theater an der Wien and the Konzerthaus Berlin (1803), the Opern- und Schauspielhaus Frankfurt (1806), the Staatstheater Nürnberg (1807) and other venues. In 1978, there was a production without spoken dialogue in an unauthentic musical arrangement, conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch, directed by August Everding, stage design by Jürgen Rose in the Cuvilliés Theatre, Munich, and in September 2002 it was performed at Chemnitz Opera. In August 2012, the opera was presented for the first time at the Salzburg Festival, in the courtyard of the residence of the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg, conducted by Ivor Bolton and directed by Alexandra Liedtke. In October 2013, the opera was performed in USA for the first time, by New York City's Amore Opera, the small opera company which emerged after Amato Opera closed.

Roles

Synopsis

After fighting against fire and water there are still two elements for Pamina and Tamino which are not defeated: the air and the earth. Tipheus tries to divorce the engaged couple and Monostatos tries to force the love of Papagena. Papageno is meeting his parents and siblings.

Goethe's sequel

There is another sequel to the original ''Magic Flute'', also named , a libretto fragment by

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tr ...

, intended to be set to music by

Paul Wranitzky Paul Wranitzky (Czech: Pavel Vranický, 30 December 1756 – 29 September 1808) was a Moravian-Austrian classical composer. His half brother, Antonín, was also a composer. Life Wranitzky was born in Neureisch (Nová Říše) in Habsburg Morav ...

References

* Branscombe, Peter (1991) , Cambridge Opera Handbooks series, Cambridge University Press. * Brukner, Fritz (1934, ed.) . Verlag Gilhofer & Ranschburg, Vienna. * Buch, David (2004) ", Masonic Opera, and Other Fairy Tales", in ''Acta Musicologica'' 76, 2004. * Henderson, Donald G. (1983) "''The "Magic Flute'' of Peter Winter", in '' Music & Letters'' 64 (3–4), pp. 193–205. * Jahrmärker, Manuela and Waidelich, Till Gerrit (1992, ed.) . Hans Schneider, Tutzing.

External links

Variations for Pianoforte
by Joseph Wölfl,

Bavarian State Library The Bavarian State Library (german: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, abbreviated BSB, called ''Bibliotheca Regia Monacensis'' before 1919) in Munich is the central " Landesbibliothek", i. e. the state library of the Free State of Bavaria, the bi ...