Abstract

COTELLO, Beatriz. Zauberflöte or The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: An approach to its mythological and symbolic contents. Circe clás. mod. [online]. 2006, n.10, pp.97-123. ISSN 1851-1724.

The Magic Flute is the last opera Mozart composed, in 1791, some months before dying, on the 5th december. The text was written by Emanuel Schikaneder, who was at the same time an actor and the owner of the theater, called Freihaustheater in Wieden, in the outskirts of Vienna, where the first performance took place (september that year) . The text is a happy mixture of a tale of enchantment with 'good'and 'wicked' characters cherished by the viennese, and a scenic Mysterium which reflects the ideals of the age of Enlightment and masonic ideology. Both Mozart and Schikaneder belonged to a massonic lodge. The text, which is rather complex, has been subject to a great deal of analysis from different music critics, scene directors and music lovers. This article deals with a specific kind of interpretation: one based on psychoanalitical cathegories. By Erwin Ringel, a viennese psychoanalist, who focuses the analysis of the piece on its humanitarian message and the concept that every human being has traces of goodnes and evil in itself, and by Bernd Deininger and Helmut Remmel who analyze the analogy between the contents of the opera and the psychical evolution of the self and with the conflict among individual and institutions. The article includes an overview of the mithological contents implicit in the piece, specially the Orpheus myth.

Keywords : Opera; Magic Flute; Papageno; Freemassonry; Psychoanalysis.

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