Magic Flute/Grading Rubric
5: roughly 99%-93%
contains a complete and compelling thesis * (with an active verb) / embeds the argument accurately in historical context (makes use of relevant historical information and time and place are established) # / the introduction adequately lays the groundwork for the argument, i.e. directed the reader’s attention to the thesis
4: roughly 92%-87%
contains a complete and compelling thesis * (with an active verb) / embeds the argument accurately in historical context (makes use of some historical information and time and place are established) /
3: roughly 86%-80%
contains a thesis, but one that might have been better crafted / indicates some connection to the historical period (establishes time and place) /
2 : roughly 79% -75%
contains an incomplete thesis (lacks direction or dynamism) / fails to locate the work in the historical period
1 : roughly 74%-68%
contains an incomplete thesis / lacks a connection with the period (no mention of historical information) / the introduction does not establish historical context (lacks reference to time or space)
* compelling means that the argument has intellectual substance and is historically informed
# examples include Auflkärung, Sturm und Drang, Rousseau, Kant, Freemasonry, Viennese coffeehouses, ‘bildung’ (moral formation), Enlightened despotism, Joseph II, State Opera House, philosophes
The philosophers and artists of the late 18th century Aufklärung tempered the rational disposition of their French predecessors with a heightened interest in emotional intensity and the individual will. Immanuel Kant’s declaration “sapere aude” is emblematic of this synthesis: the pursuit of knowledge was not a mechanical task, but one which required personal fortitude. The development of society and the development of character were intertwined. It is appropriate, then, that Mozart’s opera Die Zauberflöte, written in 1791, combined artistic accomplishment with pedagogy. The opera follows Prince Tamino’s attempts to win the hand of the fair Pamina and join priest Sarastro’s brotherhood. In keeping with the egalitarian sentiments of Enlightenment thinkers—Adolph Knigge, for example, who declared that “morality is the art which teaches man to enter on manhood and do without princes”—Tamino’s noble origin is of no importance. With the commoner Papageno by his side, he journeys through a strange land, mirroring the intellectual voyages of Aufklärer in domains far beyond received dogma. Tamino’s quest turns the abstract conflict between knowledge, represented by Sarastro, and ignorance, represented by his enemy, the Queen of the Night, into the story of an individual maturation, rendered emotionally compelling through the power of music. It is therefore emblematic of the late Enlightenment.
Premiering on September 30th 1791, just one year after the death of Hapsburg Emperor Joseph II, Die Zauberflöte marked an era of cultural coalescing of Germans around ideals of the enlightenment—the Aufklärung. As a supporter of enlightened absolutism, Joseph II enacted reforms to the justice system, like the banning of torture and the death penalty in many minor criminal cases. He also patronized the arts, abolished serfdom, established the Patent of Tolerance in 1781, and defined the Aufklärung with the seeds of German cultural nationalism—Sturm und Drang—by promoting the German language over French and supporting German opera. Philosophes like Jean-Jacque Rousseau and Immanuel Kant advocated for the education of a man’s spirit and the elevation of the arts, ideas which Mozart translated into opera—a vehicle for spreading enlightenment ideals to instill moral behavior among commoners. Like Rousseau and the Aufklärung, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte expressed the idea that the promised change of the Enlightenment—a shift to reason, freedom, and nature—occurred on the individual level, in the education of a man, and in the struggle and journey of manhood endured by Tamino. Once subjects began to pursue intellectual and spiritual freedom, then could the societal transformation sought after by the philosophes and freemasons be realized on a national stage under the guardianship of a “monarch who, despite so many opportunities allowing him to forget that he is human, still remains a man and is superior to other men only as a man” (Schink).
If, in the words of one 19th century German music theorist, “art is always and everywhere…the secret monument of its time,” then somewhere in the temple of the Enlightenment must lie Mozart’s 1791 Die Zauberflöte. One of the composer’s most famous works, the German-language opera is particularly representative of the Aufklärer, the German Enlightenment, by nature of its interest in matters of political philosophy (such as absolutism), social institutions (like the Masons), and the arts and sciences more generally. Indeed, the operatic form — the stunning union of orchestra, singing, theater, and composition — can itself be viewed as a representation of the Enlightenment spirit, that hopeful intellectualism of the philosophes which cautiously hailed the advancement of the human condition. Yet as much as Mozart’s music was infused with the spirit of the times, its social relevance was only as great as the medium which carried it to the audiences who raptly watched, listened, and thought. It is through this social interaction, that of the enlightened artist-philosophe sharing his gift for the benefit of all, that the opera truly takes its place as a symbol of the Enlightenment. And thus, as a product of one of the age’s monumental figures, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte ultimately serves as a moralistic thesis on the Late Enlightenment: an endorsement of the enlightened despot in Sarastro, a condemnation of dogmatic equivocation in the Queen of the Night, and a joyous synthesis of reason and passion that foretells the Romantic era to come.
European History 