The life and times of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) are covered so well in books, on the Internet and through other media sources that we need not spend much time on his biography in this limited amount of space. But it would be good to put one of his final works, the opera The Magic Flute, in the context of his last year.
There are so many myths about Mozart’s life and death that it is often difficult to distinguish truth from fiction. It is true that Mozart had occasional financial worries, and in fact borrowed money from one of his friends from time to time. But his final year, 1791, seems to have been excellent financially. He brought in 2,000 florins from various commissions that year, not including any fee he might have received for The Magic Flute. For the period, this was excellent money for a musician and placed him well within the growing Viennese bourgeoisie.
Another myth of sorts was Mozart’s never having received a royal position in the Viennese court. He did, in fact, receive a position, it just wasn’t the position he wanted, that of Royal Court Composer. The position was that of Royal Court Chamber Music Composer, for which he was required to write dance music for royal balls. Although this wasn’t as prestigious a position as court composer, it was a relatively lucrative position. But by the beginning of 1791, the emperor Joseph II had been dead for nearly a year, and anyone with any talent in Vienna despaired of receiving support from the new emperor, Leopold II, for artistic endeavors. Leopold was completely disinterested in music, art and theatre. In fact his empress, upon hearing Mozart’s opera La Clemenza di Tito after their coronation as King and Queen of Bohemia, called the work ‘una porcheria tedescha’, a bit of German hogwash! Mozart was a realist and he gave up any hope of continued monetary support from the Hapsburgs.
One of the greatest myths deals with Mozart’s death and his supposed
burial in a pauper’s grave at the end of 1791. In fact, Mozart was buried
in a communal grave, not a pauper’s grave. This was not because
he was destitute but because Joseph II had issued an edict that funeral processions,
obsequies and burials should be made less ostentatious and, for sanitary reasons,
deceased citizens of Vienna had to begin sharing gravesites. This edict was
promulgated due to a lack of burial sites in the old city of Vienna. A grave
was to be used for one whole week before being limed and covered over, in order
that it could take as many deceased as possible.
There is another myth, of course, that being the supposed poisoning of Mozart
by a jealous Antonio Salieri. This has been so carefully and creditably debunked
by Mozart scholars that we need not spend any time on it at all. But it’s
a myth that piques peoples’ curiosity and it will never completely go
away.
The abundance of myths concerning Mozart surely stems from the fact that he died so young, leaving such a remarkable collection of works, that we find it impossible to believe that there wasn’t something remarkable and mysterious about his death as well. As difficult as it may be to accept, this unbelievably gifted musician had a quite un-remarkable death due to rheumatic fever, and like many of his contemporaries was taken from his life way too soon simply due to the inadequacy of 18th century medicine.
The Magic Flute seems to have taken much of Mozart’s attention during the second half of that fateful year of 1791. It was a project presented to him by his old friend Emanuel Schikaneder, impresario of the suburban Theater auf der Wieden, also known as the Freyhaustheater. Although its composition was interrupted by a royal commission for La Clemenza di Tito (leaving some of the parts of Zauberflöte unwritten until days before the premiere) the opera premiered at the Freyhaustheater on September 30, 1791. The librettist Schikaneder played the role of Papageno himself. Audiences were excellent and even court composer Antonio Salieri made an appearance, applauding the work warmly. Twenty performances were given in that first run, and by the year 1800 Schikaneder had performed it over 200 times. In the first production, Tamino was portrayed by Benedikt Schack (who performed the flute parts himself from onstage) and Mozart’s sister-in-law Josepha Hofer (nee Weber) was the Queen of the Night.
The production of the opera, as was true of most of the operas performed at Schikaneder’s theatre, was spectacular and involved many special effects. Even a flying machine was used for the appearances of the Three Boys. Those first audiences had to wait many hours in line for tickets to the opera, and found it necessary to be in their seats by 4:00 PM for a 7:00 PM performance. The opera made Schikaneder a rich man (at least for a time) and his theatre the most popular in Vienna.