Libretto of The Magic Flute

The Magic Flute is a celebrated opera composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart employed a libretto written by his close colleague Emanuel Schikaneder, who was also the director of the Theater auf der Wieden at which the opera premiered in the same year. (He played the role of Papageno as well). Grout and Williams describe the libretto thus:

Schikaneder, a kind of literary magpie, filched characters, scenes, incidents, and situations from others' plays and novels and with Mozart's assistance organized them into a libretto that ranges all the way from buffoonery to high solemnity, from childish faerie to sublime human aspiration – in short from the circus to the temple, but never neglecting an opportunity for effective theater along the way.

The sources for the work fall into (at least) four categories: works of literature, earlier productions of Schikaneder's theater company, Freemasonry, and the 18th century tradition of popular theater in Vienna.

The Schikaneder troupe prior to the premiere of The Magic Flute had developed considerable experience with performing fairy tale operas with similar plots, characters, and singers. Two bear a particularly strong relationship to The Magic Flute:

A very long tradition asserts that Freemasonry plays a major role in the content of Schikaneder's libretto. Mozart was an active Mason in Vienna, and wrote a substantial quantity of music for his own lodge, including in 1791 (see Mozart and Freemasonry). Schikaneder had been a Mason in Regensburg (1786–7) for a few months before his lodge suspended him.

The simpler accounts of Masonic influence in The Magic Flute assume that Masonry provided a system of values, symbolism, and ritual for the opera, but no part of the narrative. More elaborate accounts suggest that the opera was intended as an allegory with a hidden Masonic agenda. For instance, the evil Queen of the Night is sometimes taken to be an emblem for the empress Maria Theresa, who was hostile to Freemasonry in Austria during her reign (1740–1780).

It remains a near-consensus that the opera is in a sense Masonic. However, the Mozart scholar David J. Buch has expressed a contrarian view, suggesting that Masonic interpretations have been oversold. His key point is that careful study of some of the other possible sources, such as those mentioned above, provides alternative origins for elements of the libretto thought to be Masonic. Buch is particularly skeptical of allegorical Masonic interpretations, since libretti with such hidden agendas do not appear to have been commonly created in Mozart and Schickaneder's day.

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