Comparing The Queen Of The Night, Pamina, And Papageno

While many scholars have written about the Masonic interpretation of Die ZauberflÃ" §te, it may be viewed with a different background, namely its connections to fantasy. Much of this connection comes from the sources that were adapted into the libretto, but there are also links to the genre of the fairy tale in general. This essay will examine three characters in this context - the Queen of the Night, Pamina, and Papageno - and explore how Mozart has musically represented them. The origins of the Queen of the Night are found in the story Lulu, oder der Zauberflà ¶te (Lulu, or the Magic Flute) by Jakob August Liebeskind, published in a collection of fairy tales called Dschinnistan. In Lulu, a youth finds himself in the kingdom of a fairy queen, known as the ‘radiant fairy’. Like the Queen of the Night, this fairy queen asks the youth to rescue her daughter, whom has been captured by an evil sorcerer, and is given a magic flute to aid him (Spaethling 1975, pp. 48 -49). However, unlike the fairy queen, the Queen of the Night is revealed as the villain of the opera and has deceived Tamino. It has been suggested that Schikaneder changed directions in the libretto due to a similar opera opening before Die ZauberflÃ" §te, called Kaspar der Fagottist, which would account for the seemingly sudden change in the personality and purpose of the Queen. However, this view is largely discredited now (Branscombe 1991, p. 29). It is more likely that Mozart and Schikaneder had intended for this dual