Mozart - Die Zauberflöte [antikvár]

rmmHis poor health, his financial ivoes, perhaps even that mysterious Requiem commission seemed to plunge the young Mozart into a sort of foreboding that the end was near, which indeed would occur a few months after the premiere of the opera Die Zauberflote. Vef this state of mind w/as not followed by a feeling of resignation. Quite the contrary, the composer evermore placed his trust in the Utopia of a new society, a global one, based on shared universal values such as justice, brotherhood, wisdom. Values that Tamino must strenuously conquer during his journey of initiation.From a theatrical and musical standpoint the work is classified within a very specific genre, that of the Zauberoper, the magic opera that would lead to the romantic results of Carl Maria von Weber An element at the heart of this type of opera is the category of the "marvellous," the wonder that is created onstage and the involvement of the audience. But Mozart's work is also an interweaving between the serious and the comic, fantasy and everyday life, the sublime and the trivial, for a combination of genres that is truly remarkable. A rich figurative tradition, which is recalled in the iconography of the volume, serves as a substrate for Mozart's and Schikaneder's esoteric invention. Ennemond-Alexandre Petitot, with his series of drawings dedicated to Egyptian antiquities, is one of the most famous artists to have produced images in the tradition of a Mannerist Orient, a dreamy rather than a real place based on the tastes and fashions of Europe at the time. The aim of the volume, in this sense, is also that of approaching the Zauberflote notby way of the traditional channels and interpretations, but rather by way of all that may have "visually" piqued Mozart's curiosity: a sort of figurative counterpoint to Salzburg's musical world. One of the most beloved operas of all time. Die Zauberflote is a theatrical piece that is by nature indefinable: a fairy tale, a farce, a school play, a mystery, a sacred representation. On the one hand, it marks the approach to a form of popular music for the theater, closer to the taste of the common people; on the other, it is a novel way of opening up toward the universalistic ideals of the Enlightenment. Hence, the music composed by Mozart delighted the llluminists, from Rousseau to Diderot, from Montesquieu to d'Alembert to Malesherbes, portrayed by Lemonnier in Madame Geoffrin's salon intent on reading a tragedy by Voltaire.Also touched upon is the universal theme of the conflict between good and evil, light and darkness, embodied by two figures: Sarastro and the Queen of the Night. Not surprisingly the opera ends with the stage direction that reads: "the whole scene turns into a sun, " indicating the victoryof the forces of light over darkness. A suggestively topical image for all of us. who are immersed in a global society which completely differs from the utopia dreamed of in the Zauberflote.Giovanni BazoliChairman of the Supervisory Board Intesa Sanpaolo SpA