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A Mozartian Warm-Up for ‘’

he discovery of Mozart’s significant Weibchen.” Schikaneder, who is credit- Trole in the opera The Philosopher’s ed with two of the works in The Philoso- Stone casts a whole new light on his pher’s Stone, was the creator of the comic famous opera The Magic Flute. This figure Papageno in The Magic Flute. recording presents the long-lost half-sis- Further, the other three collaborators ter. It is also something of a minor mira- in The Philosopher’s Stone also played cle that the opera, a product of the col- major roles in the following year’s pro- laboration of five composers, is as duction of The Magic Flute. Johann Bap- delightful as it is. tist Henneberg, who has 10 of the 24 In 1997, musicologist David Buch attributions in The Philosopher’s Stone, announced his discovery of an old score including most of Act I, was the conduc- of the 1790 opera, The Philosopher’s tor for The Magic Flute (except when Stone, wherein a copyist had identified Mozart himself chose to conduct). Franz The Philosopher’s Stone, or which of five composers, including Xaver Gerl, who is identified as com- The Enchanted Isle Mozart, had composed which part. In posing four works in The Philosopher’s by , 1998, the , under Martin Stone, sang the bass role of Zarastro in , Pearlman, recorded the opera with peri- The Magic Flute. Finally, Benedikt , Franz Xaver od instruments. And in 1999, Telarc Schack, with five attributions in The Gerl, and . released the CD. The five composers Philosopher’s Stone, was the tenor, A fairy-tale opera from 1790, stayed together as a team in producing, Tamino, in The Magic Flute. How far rediscovered by David J. Buch. in 1791, Mozart’s The Magic Flute—of Mozart’s role extended in the composi- Boston Baroque, conducted by which Mozart was the sole composer. tions attributed to the others is not Martin Pearlman Two major questions arise: Why known. However, as Pearlman relates Telarc CD, 1999, $29.97 would Mozart work with a team of five in the text included with the CD, evi- composers? And, what changes oc- dently Mozart would arrive at Schack’s the masses, and against high-brow, effete, curred in the “sequel,” when Mozart residence and, in the few minutes of and decadent fare, such as the influence assumed full control? waiting for Schack to dress to go out, he of the French materialist and cynic, would playfully compose music into Voltaire, upon the king, Frederick the The ‘Magic Flute’ Team Schack’s unfinished opera scores. Great. The publication of Wieland’s What was Mozart doing in joining this Shakespeare collection in German was compositional team in 1790? Some back- Schikaneder and Wieland followed the next year, 1767, by an explo- ground is needed. The other four com- Schikaneder created the libretti for both sion of cultural optimism from Nicolai’s posers were members of Emmanuel operas, drawing upon Christoph Martin publication of Mendelssohn’s Phaedon. Schikaneder’s acting troupe at the The- Wieland’s popular collection of tales, Schikaneder caught the acting bug ater auf der Weiden, in a working-class Dschinnistan, which had lately been pub- no later than 1769, joining an acting suburb of Vienna. Mozart and Schika- lished (between 1786 and 1789). Howev- troupe in 1773 to perform Shakespeare. neder had significant connections to each er, Schikaneder’s reliance on Wieland for When, in 1789, he assumed directorship other, and to a common republican pro- material is the tip of the iceberg. He of the Theater auf der Weiden, he put ject of educating and uplifting citizens. probably owed the direction of his whole on at least four plays based upon Previous to Buch’s discovery, it was life to Wieland. When Schikaneder was Wieland’s translations within two years. assumed that Mozart had contributed to 15 years old, in 1766, Wieland’s transla- Schikaneder created three of the plays, Schikaneder only one of the works in tion of 22 Shakespeare plays launched a and a fourth, Oberon, was turned into a The Philosopher’s Stone, the famous revolution in German cultural life. The libretto by Karl Giesecke, another mem- “Miau! Miau!” duet that opens the translation was published in Berlin by ber of his troupe. Giesecke, also in the Finale of Act II. (This assumption had Friedrich Nicolai, who had been allied premiere cast of The Magic Flute, later been based upon a known copy of this with the playwright Gotthold Ephraim became a famous professor of mineralo- “cat duet” in Mozart’s hand.) Since Lessing, and his close collaborator, Moses gy, upon whom Goethe relied for Mozart had contributed individual Mendelssohn, since the mid-1750’s, in unusual mineralogical samples. works to several operas by others, noth- efforts to build a German culture capable Giesecke had been educated, during the ing much was made of this. Now, Buch of sustaining a republic. The three had American Revolution, at Göttingen, a has identified Mozart as the main com- launched a cultural journal in the late hot-bed of Benjamin Franklin’s collabo- poser of the Act II Finale, along with 1750’s, to wage war against the low- rators in Europe. (Wieland’s Oberon the Act II duet, “Nun, liebes grade “soap-opera” fare being peddled to attracted another Franklin admirer,

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© 2000 Schiller Institute, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited. soon after Giesecke had turned it into a in Vienna in 1776, per discussions with Quite courageously, Schikaneder libretto: In 1799-1800, it was translated Lessing. Intense political fighting sur- opened his first stay in Vienna, in into English by the U.S. Ambassador to rounded the policy of bringing Shake- November 1784, with the same Abduc- Prussia, John Quincy Adams.) speare, Goethe, and Lessing to German tion! Shortly thereafter, in February subjects. Frederick the Great weighed in 1785, his attempt to perform Beaumar- The Shakespeare Project against such a loving fight for the hearts chais’ Marriage of Figaro as a German Mozart, six years younger than and minds of the population, with a 1780 play, was prohibited by Count Pergen, Schikaneder, shared in the benefits of pronouncement, “De la littérature alle- the head of the secret police. Although the republican networks that launched mande,” intoning: “The rules of the the- Joseph II proceeded to promote him for the Wieland Shakespeare and the ater are not arbitrary. They are in Aris- the National Theater itself, Schikaneder Mendelssohn Phaedon. Mozart’s father totle’s Poetics.” And in Vienna, Joseph was second to Brockmann, the lead Leopold obtained a set of Wieland’s II’s enemies attacked Lessing in 1780 as a actor there, and, from 1786 to 1789, works (from a friend, Salomon Gessner) paid propagandist for Jews. In the spring Schikaneder left Vienna to tour his own in 1766, immediately after they appeared of 1781, Mozart was recruited to Vienna troupe. Benedikt Schack joined the in print. When his son, Wolfgang, at 21 by the principals of the National The- troupe when the tour reached Salzburg years of age, performed for Wieland in ater: von Sonnenfels, van Swieten, Count in 1786. In these years, Schikaneder Mannheim (December 1777), Wieland Cobenzl (the Court and State Chancel- added the new playwright Friedrich declared that meeting Mozart and hear- lor), and G. Stephanie, the librettist for Schiller to his repertoire of Lessing, ing him play was “a real piece of good Mozart’s first opera there, The Abduction Goethe, and Shakespeare—although fortune.” Discussions ensued around from the Seraglio. He lived with friends Schikaneder was known for introducing making the German language sing, and of Moses Mendelssohn, the Arnsteins, his own alterations into the plays. around breaking down the walls who provided him with a copy of In 1788, Johann Friedel, who had been between language and music, but plans Mendelssohn’s Phaedon. in Schikaneder’s troupe in Vienna in for collaboration on a singspiel weren’t 1784-85, opened the Theater auf der Wei- realized, as Mozart left for a timely pro- Schikaneder in Vienna den with Schiller’s Kabale und Liebe and ject in Paris, involving Lafayette’s circles Schikaneder visited Vienna in 1783, and Lessing’s Emilia Galotti. When Friedel and the American Revolution. there performed a very successful Ham- died in 1789, Schikaneder returned to Meanwhile, Schikaneder’s theater let. This very likely caught Emperor Vienna, with Schack and Gerl in his activities between 1769 and 1780 includ- Joseph II’s attention, as the play was troupe, to run the theater. Financial back- ed all the new plays of Lessing, a couple politically sensitive in Vienna. On an ing was secured from Joseph von Bauern- by Goethe, and many Shakespeare earlier occasion (according to Mozart’s feld (whose son Eduard later became plays—including his favorites, Hamlet, letter to his father of Nov. 10, 1781), the Franz Schubert’s good friend). The July Macbeth, Richard III, and King Lear. He Emperor was to have had Hamlet per- 1789 opening was The Two Antons by performed in many towns and cities, formed for the visit of Russia’s Grand Schack and Gerl. Mozart enjoyed this including Augsburg, Nuremberg, and Duke Paul. However, the Shakespear- opera, and later wrote his K. 613 Piano Munich. In 1779, in the Slovenian town ean actor, Brockmann, told Joseph II Variations based upon the most popular of Ljubljana, he led his troupe in a per- that he could not go through with it, melody from this singspiel, “Ein Weib ist formance of a play, Winter Quarters in because the Grand Duke was, in real das herrlichste Ding auf der Welt” (“A America. Although this reviewer is not life, already playing the role! Joseph II woman is the most magnificent thing on familiar with the play, its title at least appreciated Brockmann’s insight and earth”). So, Mozart was in some working strongly suggests that Schikaneder and wit so much, that he awarded him 50 relationship with this troupe when his audiences followed the American ducats on the spot. Schikaneder first arrived back in Vienna, Revolution’s developments, including the In 1784, Schikaneder again im- and might well have seen other produc- critical winter at Valley Forge, 1777-78. pressed Joseph II with a version of tions of that season, including Schiller’s In the autumn of 1780, Schickaneder Friedrich Schiller’s Kabale und Liebe Don Carlos, and the play based on met up with Mozart, when he brought (Cabal and Love) that the Emperor had Wieland’s Oberon. to Mozart’s Salzburg, stagings including seen in Pressburg; the Emperor then Mozart had attended the perfor- Hamlet, and Lessing’s Emilia Galotti. invited Schikaneder to revive German mances of Schikaneder’s troupe earlier, The Mozart family attended these plays. theater back in Vienna. Joseph II had in 1784-85, and undoubtedly welcomed Schikaneder provided them with season come under intense pressure to cease the plays and singspiels at the Theater auf passes, and he socialized frequently at such attempts to uplift his German- der Weiden from 1788 to 1790. His ’s home. It was at that speaking subjects, after the tremendous renewed collaboration with Schikaneder time that Mozart made his first known success of Mozart’s The Abduction from on The Philosopher’s Stone occurred in contribution (an aria) to one of the Seraglio in the summer of 1782. (This the late spring of 1790. Given the lifelong Schikaneder’s productions. pressure included spy charges, arrests, commitments of these men, it is scarcely Meanwhile, Emperor Joseph II had and banishments, against Mozart’s col- surprising that Mozart would seize the established a German National Theater laborators that summer.) opportunity to collaborate in bringing

104 turn out, magically, for the best. The philosopher’s stone itself is the alchemi- cal knowledge to conquer death, and it was typical of Schikaneder to employ such a device; but it is not science. The audience viewing this opera finds their hearts touched; they laugh, they suffer, and they leave optimistic, as things have fortunately worked out. In The Magic Flute, however, the workings of love are not left to fortune. Mozart brings to bear his struggle to master his own genius, from his intense working through of Johann Sebastian Bach’s contrapuntal science. In coming to know the non- magical workings of his own genius, he gained a unique insight into the love his Creator bore him, and all men. The power of love, and of mind, were funda- mentally the same. When the magic flute arrives

The Granger Collection onstage, and is presented to Tamino, it Scene from Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.” is not magical, but much more. Mozart reveals the love and power of his heart quality culture to the working-class Flute, he had confided to his wife, that and mind in the signature trio, sung by audience of the Theater auf der Weiden. he thought that he was being poisoned. Tamino and two guards (“Der, welcher However, the way in which Mozart Would leaders of Europe choose to wandelt diese Strasse,” “He who travels uniquely transformed the same basic develop their lands by renouncing the this route”), coming in on top of the array of talent and material into his 1791 “empire” model of enforced backward- unmistakable C-minor “Adagio.” This opera The Magic Flute, puts into perspec- ness, and investing in educating, and section powerfully refers to Mozart’s tive his leadership role. Schikaneder’s raising the skill levels of, the popula- scientific re-working of Bach, when he troupe never again afterwards reached tions? Or would oligarchical agents entered the cave of his own “natural” the heights of its political and artistic manipulate leaders and populations creative processes. Pamina, having con- success of the Fall of 1791, nor could it around simplistic “left” and “right” posi- quered her own demons, reunites with recover from the elimination of Mozart, tions, where liberty was Jacobinism, and Tamino at this point, presenting him nine successful weeks into the opera. success was keeping others down. with the flute. Armed with this newly Simply stated, Mozart’s The Magic discovered power, the couple bravely A Turning Point Flute addressed the question of whether proceed into the cave for their mortal Mozart’s The Magic Flute intervened the source of the universal emotion of trial. Beauty, and the sensual world, into a highly charged Vienna. In France, love in every human being, is also the can ensnare; but, followed with all our Lafayette still had the last, best hope for basis for reason, for creative mentation, heart and mind, they afford mankind carrying the American revolutionary and hence for the scientific accomplish- the power of creation. Mozart knew fight for republicanism into Europe. ments necessary for development of one this, because he worked to discover The National Guard held out the and all. Individuals either developed such in the laboratory his Creator had opportunity of a Presidential role for their emotions to be thinking citizens in provided him. Lafayette. France was just at the verge a republic, or they would be ruled by By contrast, The Philosopher’s Stone of crossing over into the Jacobin terror. their emotions as subjects, where sur- comes close, without getting there. Cer- In Vienna, the head of the secret police, vival meant making others into beggars. tainly, the five collaborators in The Pergen, had been dismissed by Emperor Mozart brought to this situation a Philosopher’s Stone celebrated the power Leopold—whose sister, Marie unique leadership capability, which he and optimism of music. One can learn a Antoinette, was under house arrest in put on stage. And the population of lot from what Mozart was working with Paris. In , Mozart’s opera La Vienna responded with excitement. in Schikaneder’s troupe, before he trans- Clemenza di Tito was performed for fes- formed it. In The Philosopher’s Stone, the tivities for the Emperor. Mozart was Science and Love flute plays a similar role, this time of a deeply involved in the strategic situa- In The Philosopher’s Stone of 1790, love magical bird given to the people by the tion. In fact, in this period, which ensnares humans, and, if they follow it god Astromonte, which has the power included the creation of The Magic through its twists and turns, matters will to discover virtue. It sings only to the

105 most pure, and so, its beauty can lead and only . . . ”), even though a simple András Schiff humans in the right direction. While lament, uses the oboe and harp most magical, it is not The Magic Flute. sensitively. Especially noteworthy, is Continued from page 93 Schack’s ominous, clanging chorus of why must I now hear Piazzolla from Charming, Not Transfigurative the eight spirits of hell, as they forge a classical artists, or Mozart from Keith The music in The Philosopher’s Stone is sword of death and revenge. (Here, the Jarrett? Why do these people think that almost always charming, and occasion- Papageno-figure, Lubano, upon hearing they can do everything? ally poignant. Mozart’s collaborators this unholy chorus from Hell, delivers certainly benefitted from working with the comic aside to the audience, “What a How do you choose what you will occu- him, but they must also be given credit charming concert”!) As Schack’s tech- py yourself with? for whatever they brought to the task. niques sound hauntingly similar to pas- As interpreter, it is my task to mediate When Schack introduces the bird who sages from Mozart’s , one is between the composers and the public, will sing to the most pure virgin, and tempted again to ascribe this either to so I dare not be in the limelight; but, I four maidens get into a squabble over some direct collaboration with Mozart don’t want to be retiring either. I must who will prove most pure, one is con- on this chorus, or at least, to happy therefore carefully consider for which vinced that this is a case where Mozart inspiration from collaborative work. works I have a natural affinity. And, in was visiting Schack, and waiting for Even the “unattributed” composer of order to discover them, I must be very him to dress while he added to Schack’s the precious march of “Lilliputians” alone, although solitude doesn’t particu- composition. (Surely, when the audience deserves praise. (The reference to Swift’s larly please me. for The Magic Flute heard, in the open- Gulliver’s Travels is explicit, with a ship- ing scene, the three maidens quarrel wreck, and the reference to “the land of What pleases you then so about Mozart? over the handsome Tamino, they would Lilliput!”—“das Lillibutische Land!”) Mozart is such a wonder, and, to inter- have remembered the squabbling four Coming right before Mozart’s first iden- pret, the most difficult there is. I’m maidens from the previous season.) tified contribution (the cat duet), it is almost fearful before him. If one does Schack’s following chorus is handled more than tempting to attribute this too much, he revolts at once, and one most effectively—where, just after delightful pastry of a march to Mozart becomes an idiot. Astromonte’s Genie has instructed the himself—along with the (also unattrib- people to pursue virtue (“Tugend”), the uted) powerful aria of revenge that fol- How do you approach a new work? beneficent power of the god Astromonte lows his duet. If it is a world premiere, I must be very is celebrated, and, in particular, the However, despite many such passages open. I first only read the notes. I crowd revels in knowing that the ways that pleasantly surprised this reviewer approach the instrument very slowly. of the god can be discerned by happily (having been skeptical when I heard of With a well-known work, there is of watching his messenger springing this group effort), there is no transfigura- course the burden of tradition. How was upwards, and soaring round the Sun. tive moment in The Philosopher’s Stone. it interpreted by others? How does it But hinting that humans can begin Instead, there is much joy at the fortu- compare with other works by the same learning the ways of divinity by observ- nate turn of events. While the two texts, composer, with composers and art of the ing the heavenly motions, is the closest both drawn from Wieland, may be very time, and so forth, that never ceases. The Philosopher’s Stone gets to what similar, epistemologically, Mozart trans- What also inspires me are the handwrit- Mozart accomplishes in The Magic formed the flute-bird of The Philoso- ten notes. Bach, for example, wrote such Flute. pher’s Stone, using his own worked-out, beautiful waves. Thus also is his Henneberg’s aria for the heroine, scientific “magic,” to craft the flute of music—it streams. Nadine (“A maiden who prates of love, The Magic Flute. Buch, Pearlman, and And dares not all for her beloved, Never the Boston Baroque have provided a Are there works which you would play feels in her heart what she says, Her happiness, if only for putting into fresh differently today than earlier? inmost feelings remain as cold as ice . . . ”) relief the unique gift Mozart gave us. Time works constantly. A Beethoven is handled tenderly, and also effectively; When you sing happy birthday for sonata after a year, there are only the but the role lacks the sublimity of Mozart every January 27, forget the silly notes there, it is not yet music. And there Mozart’s Pamina. In response to ditty, and sing it the way Wolfgang are works which one can hardly grasp as Nadine, Schack’s aria for the hero, Amadeus would enjoy it: Hear Mozart a younger man. For the late Beethoven Nadir, is quite heartfelt, and approaches and friends working together in The sonatas, I waited until at least age 50. some of Tamino’s responses to Pamina. Philosopher’s Stone, then hear The Magic And Franz Xaver Gerl shows himself in Flute for the first time all over again, and Then you enjoy becoming older? the same league as the others with his you’ll know the happiness of Mozart’s Yes, very much. aria for the hero, Nadir, in his plea to having been born. And your choice of the gods for his Nadine. And what of song and toast for the occasion will prob- This dialogue was conducted by Ursula Schikaneder’s compositional skills? His ably also work out most happily. von Arx. We publish the interview with the aria for the heroine, Nadine (“My one —David M. Shavin friendly permission of NZZ FOLIO.

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