Abstract
IT HAS BEEN NOTED many times that the libretto of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute is not text of high literary distinction. It may, in fact, be safe to assume that the two-act play, written for the occasion by the German librettist, actor-singer, and entrepreneur, Emanuel Schikaneder,' would long be forgotten had not Mozart's music kept it alive. Yet it appears equally evident that the libretto has, over the years, exercised an intense fascination and has elicited even from the soberest critics and musicians extreme statements of praise and condemnation, remarks ranging from there is no better opera text in existence2 to a mere conglomeration of absurdities.3 Stendhal, the French novelist, offers in this kaleidoscope of views sensible
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