AMD 5 - Emily Kaulius

For this AMD, I decided to do a little reading and listening of arguably Mozart's most famous opera, Die Zauberflöte, or The Magic Flute. It premiered on September 30th, 1791 in Vienna in its original language of German. Mozart conducted it himself, despite being sick. He died later that year, on December 5th. On a side note, I would highly recommend the movie Amadeus. It's a movie about the life of Mozart, told from the point of view of one of his rivals, a composer named Antonio Salieri. Granted, the movie is perhaps not the most historically accurate portrayal of Mozart's life, and it's not in German (or even with German accents), but it's still a fantastic movie. I suppose I'll get back to The Magic Flute now.

I read the synopsis of The Magic Flute, and frankly, I found it rather boring. I got the characters confused in my head, and once that happened, it all kind of went down hill. I've never been a particularly big fan of the operatic style of singing, but I love the music that accompanies it. And I love me some Mozart.

I looked up the most famous song from The Magic Flute: "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen" or "Hell's Vengeance Boil's in my Heart." It is also known as The Queen of Night Aria, and I can guarantee you've all heard it before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2ODfuMMyss

I also looked up the lyrics, along with an English translation. I was quite surprised at how much I could actually understand. I'm not sure how much the German language has changed since 1791, but hey, I understood more than I thought I would.