@bestofopera.en: The same vengeance aria that Mozart set to music near the end of his life became, more than two centuries later, a cartoon parody on TikTok. 🎭 "The Magic Flute" (Die Zauberflöte) was the last opera Mozart premiered, in 1791, weeks before he died. It wasn't a court piece: it was written in German, as a Singspiel (opera with spoken dialogue), for the Theater auf der Wieden, a popular suburban theater in Vienna. It was run by Emanuel Schikaneder, who wrote the libretto and sang Papageno on opening night. The Queen of the Night went to Josepha Hofer, Mozart's sister-in-law, whom he tailored the part for. Mozart conducted the orchestra. The public packed the house: over a hundred performances in the first year helped pay off his debts. ✨ In the story, the Queen's plan fails: Pamina never drives in the dagger, and the mother ends the opera defeated, swallowed by her own night. But the melody has had a long life. In a film from the 1980s, the opera's premiere is recreated with this aria at its center. And the same bars became a recent meme online: in the cartoon "Barbie Fairytopia," the character Bibble eats a magic fruit and belts out a parody of the aria to throw off enemies. 🎤 The one taking on the Queen here is Diana Damrau, a German soprano. It was this very role that launched her career, back in small theaters in Germany. Years later, at the Metropolitan in New York, Damrau did something unprecedented in the house's history: she sang both Pamina, the daughter, and the Queen, the mother, in different performances of the same season. What grips you more in this scene: the dizzying beauty of the singing, or the horror of what she's asking for? 👉 Follow for the best of vocal art, daily on your feed. 🎤 Diana Damrau · soprano · Germany, 1971 🎼 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart · Austria, 1756–1791 · Classicism #bestofopera #themagicflute #queenofthenight #mozart

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Thursday 16 July 2026 12:00:01 GMT