The Queen of the Night.

Why does the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberfloete hit a note that is unreachable by even many trained sopranos?

Do you suppose that it is a cryptic endorsement of the power of the pre-Enlightenment? The Queen is clearly anti-Enlightenment, yet she has the power and appeal to reach well beyond the range of any of the other characters in the Opera (and almost all other Opera). Is it a comment on the enduring power of myth? It is certainly the most memorable aria of the entire experience.

Any ideas?

It is an extremety?

…actually no it’s not or maybe for some who don’t know the opera or who have only listened to it once or twice.

The two great arias of the queen of the night are coloratura arias which Mozart himself regarded as ‘cut-up noodles’, a verdict they did not deserve even by it’s composer because it truly is great music.

He wrote the The Magic Flute for the masses not for the court. It achieved the status of supreme popularity containing some of the greatest religious music ever created especially in the choruses - of a majesty I think even Bach would have considered as one of the hallmarks of musical inspiration.

George Bernard Shaw - even though he’s not always the most insightful of music critics - thought the ending to the 1st act was the only music ‘fit to be put into the mouth of God without blasphemy’.

As for the ‘Enlightenment’, it was already raging when Mozart wrote the Marriage of Figaro which was one the enlightenment’s greatest artistic expressions composed approximately 9 or 10 years earlier. The Magic Flute itself spoke of the Masonic ideals of brotherhood another very potent ingredient of Enlightenment ideals possessed of many if not most of the founding fathers of the U.S. Constitution.

You’ve picked the two least defining arias virtually dismissing the great human and ‘enlightened’ utterances of Sarastro and the nobility of Tamino and Pamina. But Mozart knew that he was writing for peasants and once again he was right!

My knowledge is admittedly limited in this area.

Would you mind educating me a bit, then, on the progression of Mozart’s Operas wrt the Enlightenment?

Mozart was a punk that way. Much like Wagner, he was very hard on musicians. Virtuosity was much admired then, and sometimes what was admired was virtuosity for its own sake. Mozart was a virtuoso himself, evidently - could play most anything, and by ear. I don’t think the reason is anything cryptic. Just my opinion.

Not as hard as Handel who threatened to throw his prima donnas out the window if they didn’t sing it HIS WAY…and there are also other stories.