Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Die Zauberflöte – Sir Colin Davis

THE 270th ANNIVERSARY OF W. A. MOZART’S BIRTH

★★★★★

   Mozart's operatic works as a collection occupy a privileged place in the history of the genre. The composer's genius was fully reflected here, the same as in his symphonies, concertos, chamber works and religious music. Over the course of his creative life, the composer changed his attitude to existing operatic forms, combining various tendencies and opposing solutions to achieve the classical form of opera as a synthesis of the genre in his latest operas. Composed in 1787 Don Giovanni to the libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte is one of most recognized Mozart's achievements. In this dramma giocoso one can notice the unique results of combining opera buffa and opera seria. His last operas are opera seria La clemenza di Tito composed in 1791 to libretto by Pietro Metastasio and Caterino Mazzolà and Singspiel Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), composed the same year to libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. Collaboration with outstanding librettists allowed him to establish formal assumptions that remained fresh for many decades, becoming the foundation of formal solutions used by Romantic composers.
   Mozart's operas have another feature that should not escape the attention of a sensitive listener. The means by which Mozart enhances the dramatic expression and illustrates the attitudes and aspirations of the characters constitute a constantly expanding catalog of means of classical music. This is an important element of semantics after the abandonment of baroque system of musical rhetoric. And although each of later composers chose the means of expression more or less individually, Mozart's works are so clear that they can be a great way to penetrate the world of musical meanings. While instrumental music remains an abstraction up to a certain point, the semantic framework of every opera is the libretto. The Enlightenment ideas present in the dramatic work of librettists determine the situation in which in Mozart's operas we receive a fundamental set of musical semantic means. The 22 opera works composed by Mozart, ranging from simple singspiels to complex operas, are a mirror reflecting both the era of Viennese classicism and the extraordinary path of innovation of the brilliant composer. The eight operas that Mozart composed in the last decade of his life have permanently entered the repertoire of world operas.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Die Zauberflöte (1986)

   The position of Magic Flute, Mozart's last opera, is a phenomenon that can only be understood as the result of the creator's brilliant intuition. From the point of view of form, it is a singspiel. On the symbolic level, it is a lecture on the Masonic vision of the world, the system of values ​​and the role played in it by aware and properly prepared individuals. Behind the simple, uncomplicated form of the Singspiel, behind the fairy-tale story of love that overcomes adversity, there is an interesting explanation of Masonic ritual and symbolism. To save Pamina, Prince Tamino undergoes tests of silence, fire and water, and finally is initiated into the temple of wisdom. This opera can be perceived at the same time as a children's fairy tale and as a philosophical parable. All this makes it one of the most popular works in the history of the genre, both in stage productions and on phonographic releases.
   The series of major recordings of The Magic Flute begins with the Berliner Philharmoniker recording of 1937, conducted by Beecham. Later came post-war recordings: a live recording from Salzburg conducted by Furtwängler in 1949, and a Viennese recording by Karajan published the following year. It's also worth mentioning the very interesting Roman recording from 1953 conducted by Karajan and sung in Italian. In 1954, Fricsay recorded The Magic Flute for Deutsche Grammophon. Ten years later, in 1964 two great performnces were issued at almost simultaneously: Klemperer’s rendition for EMI, and Böhm’s for Deutsche Grammophon. The following decade brought recordings conducted by Suitner (ETERNA 1970), Sawallisch (EMI 1973), and Karajan (DG 1980). It would be difficult to single out the best performance—each is unique in its own way. Any work of genius can be interpreted in many ways. At the center of this balance between classical approaches and more contemporary visions of Mozart's music is The Magic Flute, recorded in 1984 as a co-production between the German label Eterna and the Dutch company Phonogram International B.V. The recordings were made at the Lucaskirche in Dresden with German musicians. That same year, the three-disc album was released under the Philips label in the Netherlands. In 1986, Eterna released a Direct Metal Mastering version of the album for the East German market.