Krzysztof Lorentz wrote:

>Listening to opera recordings without paying any attention to the plot
>seems to me strange.  Magic Flute is wonderful music and would be wonderful
>even played on a piano. But is it a good idea to know only B&W photographs
>of Rembrandt's paintings? Gardiner's recording of MF uses earlier version
>of libretto, with a lion attacking Tamino in 1st act beginning.  The music
>is different from best known accompanying a snake!  Would Margaret Price
>be such a wonderful Pamina (Davis' recording) if she didn't change from a
>young inexperienced girl (1st act) to an efficient woman (2nd act)? Is good
>staccato enough for the Queen of the Night? What is Papageno's 'hmm, hmm,
>hmm, hmm' without his mouth locked by the Ladies - an abstract effect? Why
>are they all singing words - to practice German?

Actually, I'm willing to suspend a bit of disbelief on hearing any opera,
even Magic Flute.  But why should the three ladies attending the Queeen
of the Night conclude that Tamino is the man to rescue the captured Pamina
after he swoons in fright at the sight of the dragon or lion (hardly a
Siegfried, he!), which they have no difficulty in dispatching themselves?
Why is Tamino so easily diverted from his conviction by Sarastro's question
"are you going to believe what a woman tells you"? Does anybody, including
Tamino himself have any doubts that the fearsome "tests" of fire and water,
etc., that he must pass to prove himself worthy of Pamina are going to
leave him unscathed? The libretto has one good line, IMO, as I've mentioned
before.  And it's Papageno's as he pulls himself together after having been
frightened at the sight of Monostasos: "I've seen black birds in my life,
so why not black people?"

And by the way, what's with the flute? Papageno's bells sound at least as
delightful and accomplish more than Tamino does in the one section where he
plays it.

Mind you, I love the opera.  It was the opera which disclosed to me that
our 8-year old daughter could read when we took her to the Bergman film w/
English subtitles.  I feel, however, that its plot would tax the credulity
of any body much older.

Tosca, on the other hand, is good old fashioned soap-melodrama, w/ love,
jealousy, sadism, seduction, blackmail, homicide, multiple betrayals,
admittedly a bit thick to be a mirror of real life but all of it plausible.

Walter Meyer