Magic Flutes

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Pamina begs Sarastro to forgive her mother and he reassures her that revenge and cruelty have no place in his domain (Aria: " In diesen heil'gen Hallen" / Within these sacred halls). The priests declare that virtue and righteousness will sanctify life and make mortals like gods (" Wenn Tugend und Gerechtigkeit" / If virtue and justice). Perhaps they were necessary to establish the historical background and to draw the stark contrast between Guy and Tessa, but I found I understood those much better once the story really got going, and saw the people in action and conversation.

This year (thanks to a recommendation by Ella Risbridger on Instagram, of all places) I have binged on Eva Ibbotson, not her children's books, but her elegantly written, witty and well-observed if (after a few) formulaic fables of emigrees with beautiful burnished hair fallen on hard times. But while she is fulfilling the requirements of her genre, Ibbotson is also gently mocking it, and this is what makes Magic Flutes so delicious. The Financial Times and its journalism are subject to a self-regulation regime under the FT Editorial Code of Practice.

Tessa has been brought up to behave like an aristocrat, but she's extremely comfortable running around helping the members of the opera company in any way she can, often to her detriment. I like the sacrifice of everything toward the greater good of music, and that Beethoven's button business-genius.

The allegorical plot was influenced by Schikaneder and Mozart's interest in Freemasonry and concerns the initiation of Prince Tamino. Ibbotson's plots don't tend to differ much from book to book, so you always know pretty much what you're getting, and that makes these a really nice comfort read. There is a similar warm, tolerant humor about all the confused European and Eastern European aristocrats whose world has changed around them as their lives of clueless privilege have dissolved and they are now losing their palatial homes to American industrialists and society at large is easily finding them so irrelevant. Yes, Eva Ibbotson’s main job is to keep the appealing hero and the appealing heroine apart for the length of the book. The opera was the culmination of a period of increasing involvement by Mozart with Schikaneder's theatrical troupe, which since 1789 had been the resident company at the Theater auf der Wieden.When the woman he's loved since he was a young student at Oxford is suddenly widowed and back on the market, he lays out an alarmingly elaborate plan to woo and win her back and gift her with the life he believes she deserves. The one other thing that seems to be as important a factor as the city and it's royalty in this book is music and the opera. Tamino hears Papageno's pipes sounding offstage, and hurries off to find him (aria: " Wie stark ist nicht dein Zauberton" / How strong is thy magic tone). I needed to read a book in a new country to complete my reading around the world goal for the year, but being December, I wanted something lighter.