A Book of Operas: Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their MusicKrehbiel, Henry Edward
History
A Book of Operas: Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music
Krehbiel, Henry Edward
Operas -- Stories, plots, etc.
in his domain, but the magical bells give him comfort and assurance.
Meanwhile the padlock has been removed from his lips, with
admonitions not to lie more. In the quintet which accompanies these
sayings and doings, there is exquisite music, which, it is said,
Mozart conceived while playing at billiards. Finally the ladies
announce that three boys, "young, beautiful, pure, and wise," shall
guide the pair to the castle of Sarastro.
We are next in a room of the castle before the would-be rescuers
arrive. Pamina has tried to escape, and is put in chains by her
keeper, the Moor Monostatos. She weeps because of her misery, and
repulses the protestations of love with which her jailer plagues
her. Papageno enters the room, and he and the jailer run in opposite
directions at sight of each other--Papageno frightened by the
complexion of the blackamoor, Monostatos terror-stricken at the
sight of a man in feathers. Returning, Papageno convinces himself
of the identity of Pamina with the daughter of the Queen of Night,
tells her of Tamino, who is coming for her with a heart full of
love, and promptly they sing of the divine dignity of the marital
state. It is the duet, "Bei Männern weiche Liebe fühlen," or "Là
dove prende, amor ricetto," familiar to concert-rooms, and the
melody to some hymnals. A story goes that Mozart had to write
this duet three or five times before it would pass muster in the
censorious eyes of Schikaneder. After the opera had made good its
success, the duet as we have it to-day alternated at the performance
with a more ornate version--in all likelihood one of the earlier
forms in which Mozart cast it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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