1/31/13

     In literature, characters are based from a few key types. These types are the following: protagonist, antagonist, hero, anti-hero, and foil. Each of these have a different meaning, which is what makes the characters different. In The Magic Flute characters fulfill these defining meanings. I will discuss the five main characters of the opera, who are Tamino, Pamina, Papageno, Sarastro, and the queen, and I will discuss which character fills the role of the key types.
     The first type is the most important character of the opera, the protagonist. A protagonist is the main character of the opera. Without the protagonist, the opera would lose the main purpose of the story. The protagonist is what the opera is mostly about. Now I am not saying that the opera wouldn't exist without the protagonist, but many people would lose interest if they had to focus on a lot of other characters rather than keeping focused mainly on the protagonist. In The Magic Flute I believe that Tamino and Pamina are the protagonists. They are the main characters that we focus on throughout the opera. The opera is about how each of them gain enlightenment and find love. They are the main focus of the opera.
     The second type is the antagonist. The antagonist is basically the bad guy or opposite of the protagonist. They spend their time plotting against the protagonist. Without the antagonist, the story wouldn't be as good. As humans we love drama and suspense without the antagonist the story would lose most of these qualities. The Queen of the Night(The Magic Flute) fits these characteristics. She is against Tamino and Pamina because they seek enlightenment from the Initiated and she doesn't want them to find enlightenment, but to stay where they were. She tries to get them to kill Sarastro, who is just trying to help them find enlightenment.
     The third type is the hero. The hero is a person who is endowed with power or a great task, like Tamino. He is endowed with the powers of the magic flute. Tamino and goes to save Pamina from Sarastro, but later finds out that he is good. He completes his mission because Pamina is saved from herself. Another hero in The Magic Flute is Sarastro. He is a priest or wise man, and he has chosen to help Tamino and Pamina find enlightenment. He helps save both of them from themselves.
     The fourth type is the anit-hero. The antihero is a character who has some qualities like the antagonist, but has some of the qualities of the hero as well. In this opera, the anti-hero is Papageno in my opinion. He has some qualities like Tamino, but lacks the resolve to be as great as Tamino. An example of this is when he is seen babbling when he should have remained silent. He only wanted to be happy, not enlightened like Tamino.
     The fifth type is the foil character. A foil is a character who is just used to help make another character look better. In The Magic flute an example of a foil character is Papageno. He is in the play in my opinion just to make Tamino look more like a man. He wasn't able to keep silent in the trials, and Tamino was able too. Papageno wasn't allowed to join the Initiated, but Tamino was. Papageno was just a character created to make Tamino look better than he already was.
     In conclusion, characters are important to making an opera, or story of any kind. Without different character types the story would be boring and no one would stay interested. Each type of character helps make the story interesting.         

1/29/13

http://operaslo.org/assets/images/concerts-and-events/The%20Magic%20Flute%202013/THe%20Magic%20FLute%20Title%20Pic.jpg

     The Magic Flute was a really great opera. From the onset of the opera, I believed that The Magic Flute  would just be a fairy-tale, hero saves the princess, but I was wrong. The Magic Flute was much more than that. I believed that it was mostly about the search to find yourself and enlightenment. Either way according to P.G. Baker's 'Night and Day': Pattern's of symbolism in Mozart's The Magic Flute, there are four different layers of meaning in the opera. I believe the layers are talking about the different landscapes of the play: the wasteland, the temple, the garden, and hell, or 'ewige Nacht.' 
     I will first discuss the wasteland level. I believe that it represents the not perfect world. The wasteland that we first find Tamino in when he is fighting the serpent is the imperfect humanity world. In fact it is also this world where we find the queen and the three ladies are apart of. The wasteland is a symbol of how we started in the garden of Eden(Genesis 1) and how far the world has fallen.
     The second level I want to discuss is the temple. The temple represents a higher level of learning and enlightenment. It is here when Tamino finds enlightenment on the true ambition of the queen. The temple is used to begin Tamino's transition to become the man he becomes at the end, the "perfect" man. The temple is in a way acting as a school for Tamino in my opinion. Higher learning is how men will be able to rise from the ashes of the wasteland of the world they live in.
     The third level is the garden. The garden represents the garden of Eden. I believe at the end of the opera, Tamino and Pamina are standing in the garden with the sun on the horizon  I am unsure if this is true, but it is what I thought when watching the opera. After Tamino and Pamina have faced their trials, they have reattained the paradise of the garden of Eden, which was lost to man when man fell(Genesis 1-2). They have made their journey and have been rewarded for their faith, love, and courage back into the fold with God, or in the opera's case Isis.
     The fourth level is just simply hell. At the end we see that the queen, Monostatos, and the three ladies have been sent to 'ewige Nacht' or hell. I am not saying that the queen was a demonic person, but she allowed her evil side, which everyone has, overwhelm her which left her only one eternal home, hell. The queen could have been allowed to see the light like Tamino and Pamina, but she was too far gone in darkness to change. This is what awaited Tamino and Pamina, if they had not found the enlightenment, otherwise they would have eventually ended up like the queen.
      I believed that is was more about finding yourself and enlightenment. At the beginning Tamino is in a wasteland fighting a snake, but do we really know why he was there to begin with. My belief is that he was there because he was already on a journey to find himself. When the queen showed the picture of Pamina to Tamino, he felt as though he found someone that would help him find himself, but he also felt like he was in love. The queen also in my opinion promised to help him find himself as well, not really sure on that, but I think she did this by offering him her daughter. Either way, he went on the journey to rescue her. When he arrived at the temple, he felt as though he had been mislead. He felt like he would be more than likely able to find himself in the learning's of the temple and Sarastro's teachings. Either way he agreed to the trials in order to find himself. By passing the trials he found himself and gained enlightenment.
     In conclusion, the four levels I believe are the wasteland, which represented the imperfect earth, the temple, which represented a higher learning and enlightenment, the garden, which represented the perfect world that humanity lost, and hell. I believed the whole play was over the journey of finding one's self and gaining enlightenment.
     Baker's four levels: Kingdom of the sun, Sarastro's kingdom, the fallin observation of humanity, and 'ewige Nacht' or hell. Kingdom of the sun is where the good or light shines brightest, above humanity. Sarastro's kingdom is humanity realized or enlightened. The third is humanity below enlightenment. The fourth is eternal separation from the light or enlightenment.