6 - Enduring Portraits: The Arias

Summary

The arias in Mozart’s The Magic Flute are some of the most vivid and enduring in the operatic repertoire. This chapter examines how poetic structures, musical and dramatic conventions, and the abilities of the singers who originated the roles shaped their creation. While many writers focus primarily on musical form when analyzing arias, this study reveals that other elements contribute as much or more to the aria’s expressivity and the dramaturgical role it plays. Analysis also demonstrates how each aria in this work contains something unusual or extravagant – a musical element or moment that stretches the customary practices of eighteenth-century music. This fact alongside the arias’ diversity of style, color, and affect suggests the composer took great care to make each one distinctive. Consequently, Mozart’s skill and creativity was and is on display. Thus, the arias make manifest one of the opera’s main themes: the power of music.