Overview

Mozart's Magic Flute, a rich but problematic work, is complicated by discontinuities of plot, tone, and theme that disturb its surface appearance as a serene synthesis of Enlightenment ideals. This study, an essay in a dramaturgical opera criticism, explores how this eccentric masterpiece, haunted by the decline of the progressive reforms of Joseph II, uses the images of the marginalized popular theater of suburban Vienna to express a fundamental anxiety of its time (and, by inheritance, ours): the clash of a pre-capitalist, pre-industrial social morality with a modern ethic of rationalized self-interest. This anxiety divides The Magic Flute, the Viennese social imagination, and the entire Mozart opera canon between the fascination of the newly emergent self and a compensatory desire for an idealized, spontaneous, but almost unrepresentable social order.

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9780820419503

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Reviews

Brilliant...a distinguished book on Mozart's masterpiece, 'The Magic Flute...'.This book will become required reading in every course on opera history, and should also be part of the reading for every Mozart course, as well as courses on the literary background to the eighteenth century. (George J. Buelow, Indiana University) Its depth of scholarship, historical illumination, and critical insight make it a distinct contribution to resources in the field. (Stanley Kauffmann, City University of New York)

Author Information

The Author: Michael Evenden is Associate Professor and Chair of Theater Studies at Emory University, and resident dramaturg of Theater Emory, the university's resident professional theater. He has taught in opera programs at the Yale School of Music and Brigham Young University, and in theater programs at Cornell University and elsewhere; professional theater collaborations have involved him with the Yale Repertory Theater, the Alliance Theater in Atlanta, and the Seattle Repertory. He holds a D.F.A. in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism from the Yale School of Drama.

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