The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflote) in Full ScorePaperback, 1 January 1985

In May 1791, Mozart's friend Emanuel Schikaneder commissioned "The Magic Flute." In keeping with the popular level of his theater, Schikaneder himself supplied Mozart with the libretto about the rescue of a good fairy's daughter from a wicked magician by a hero armed witha magic flute. After a good deal of the music was written, composer and librettist, both Freemasons, grafting Masonic ideals onto the plot, transformed a simple fairy tale into a moralistic allegory, and a "Singspiel" into one of the world's greatest operas.