The Magic Flute

As told by David Hockney

There's a Prince, Tamino, who is wandering around Egypt dressed in a hunting costume.

A monster, a dragon, comes to attack him. He faints in fear of the monster and is rescued

by Three Ladies who kill the beast. When he wakes up, Papageno, Mr. Everyman, has

arrived. Papageno, a rather jovial, easy-going character who is dressed in brightly colored

feathers, catches birds for the Queen of the Night. He claims he killed the monster with

both hands.

At this point, the Three Ladies come back and say, "Papageno, that is naughty of you. You

shouldn't tell lies." And they put a lock on his mouth. They tell the Prince that it was they

who killed the monster and all three of them fall in love with him. They tell him he is in the

kingdom of the Queen of the Night. The Three Ladies give Prince Tamino a picture of the

queen's daughter, and he immediately falls in love with the girl in the picture. He sings a

wonderful aria about how beautiful she is.

The Queen appears and tells Prince Tamino that her daughter, Pamina, has been kidnapped

by a wicked man, Sarastro, and asks if he would go and rescue her. The Three Ladies

give him a magic flute to help him in case he comes into danger. They suggest that

Papageno go with him, but Papageno resists, as he's afraid of Sarastro. He agrees to

accompany Tamino only after the Three Ladies give him his own lucky charm - a set of

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magic bells. In the next scene, the Princess is the prisoner of the slave, Monostatos,

frightened by Papageno, runs off to ask for help, leaving Papageno and Pamina free to

go. Papageno tells Pamina of Tamino's love for her and she is eager to meet him.

The Prince, who has found Sarastro's kingdom and its temples of Wisdom, Reason and

Nature, is suspicious, because what he discovers doesn't quite tie in with what the queen

of the Night told him about Sarastro's being such a wicked man. In fact, it does look as if

there is some sense of order in Sarastro's place and nothing at all that looks evil. At one

point, the Prince plays the magic flute, which brings wild beasts, charmed and made

peaceable by the music, to surround him. (Tenors, I'm told, do not like this scene much

as the animals can upstage their singing.)

Papageno gets a chance to use his magic bells when he and Pamina are recaptured by

Monostatos. The bells have the effect of tranquilizing his captors and making them dance

off the stage. After a lot of confusion, the three travelers are captured and finally meet in

Sarastro's kingdom. Sarastro tells the Princess he has rescued her from her mother, the

Queen of the Night, who he says is really the evil one. Then Prince Tamino is told he is

now among an important order of priests and, if he wishes, he can join this brotherhood

by undergoing certain rites of passage and purification. Act 11 begins with Sarastro and

his followers singing beautiful music. That's the bit that George Bernard Shaw said was

"…probably the nearest music ever came to God's voice. If God ever sand it would be like

this." Act 11 is about the long journey and trials that the two couples, Tamino and Pamino

and Papageno and Papagena (still to appear) must endure. The high priest Sarastro and

his followers agree to allow Tamino too join their brotherhood. Tamino tells them he's a

Prince and is willing to undergo any ordeal to win Pamina.

Papageno is dragged along. They begin the journey in a very dark place, just outside the

temple. They have taken a vow of silence, but of course Papageno immediately want to

break it. He's perfectly willing to go back to his quiet life as a bird catcher for the town, but

he can't escape and agrees to go when he is promised a wife as reward. The Queen of

the Night sends the Three ladies who earlier rescued Tamino from the dragon to find out

why the two men have broken faith with her. (She's obviously been watching everything

that's going on.) They don't get an answer and the trials continue.

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There's a scene in the garden where Pamino is resting and the chief slave, Monostatos,

accosts her and tries to get her to marry him. He is a lecher. Then the Queen of the Night

slips in and gives Pamina a dagger, telling her to murder Sarastro. The evil Monostatos

overhears this and threatens her, but Sarastro, who is just behind him, saves her, explaining

his philosophy of love. It's a rather funny bit, because immediately Monostatos says he's

innocent, even after he's caught red-handed.

In the next scene Papageno breaks his vow of silence and talks to an old hag who says

she's his promised love and tells him he must swear to be true to her, or suffer serious

penalties. When he swears to be faithful, she reveals herself as a young, beautiful girl. It's

Papagena, but she's not quite ready for him, because he has not completed the journey,

so she magically disappears. He is so sad that he's lost heri that he decides to hang

himself.

The Three Ladies reappear and say, "Remember the magic bells we gave you?" As he

plays the magic bells, Papagena comes out and there is a marvelous duet when they sing

each other's names and speculate about all the little Papagenos and Papagenas they're

going to have. There's a last effort by the Queen of the Night to take over the temple. She

promises that if Monostatos helps her he can have Pamina in marriage, but the sublime

light strikes them down as they try to get into the temple.

Tamino and Pamina have now gone through the darkness and through the tests of fire

and water, with the help of the magic flute, reaching a higher level of life, toward light. I

interpret that as going towards the sun. Finally, Tamino and Pamina are joined in a grand

wedding. Everybody is overjoyed that they have made the journey and they are taken into

Sarastro's priestly order. At the end when the sun's rays strike out the darkness, all the

players are brought together and everybody finds a partner. In that sense, it is about the

union of all creatures, a universal theme.

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