ManicDDaily

Still thinking about the New York Times Article “Mind:  When Parent’s ‘I Love You’ Means ‘Do As I Say’, by  Alfie Kohn (published September 14, 2009) now in the context of Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute), by Mozart.  (I saw a dress rehearsal today of the Met’s wonderful production, designed by Julie Taymor.)

The story does not make much sense:  there is the romantic prince hero, Tamino, and the pragmatic everyman hero, Papageno, the conniving, deceptive, alluring, mother, the Queen of the Night, and the wise but endlessly testing father figure-cum-holyman-cum wizard guy (with a very deep voice) Sarastro, and too, the beautiful soprano Pamina who is a bit of a pawn swapped among them.

There is much that is supernatural:  the Queen’s helpers who in Taymor’s production sport oversized (almost Mayan looking) mask faces; the Three Spirits, little boys in underwear with bleached spiked hair and long wispy beards, who ride on a puppeteered flying bird, the birds themselves, dancers with flamingo heads, and ballet-slippered stilts.

There are slaves and betrayals and endless, seemingly arbitrary tests of character, meant (a) to purify the suitors, and (b) to separate the wheat from the chaff—that is, the strong, manly, silent types from chatty pragmatic everymen but more importantly from deceptive wiley women.  Wisdom and love, and some really great robes and headgear, are the prize.

While the story highlights the importance of steadfastness, bravery, self-discipline, the ultimate savior is music.  The power of music is represented by the magic flute given to the princely Tamino (oddly by the bad Queen of the Night), the magic bells or glockenspiel, given to Papageno, the pure songs of the Spirits.  But, overwhelming all of that is the sublime, beautiful music of the opera itself, composed by Mozart towards the end of his life.

This time, watching the opera, looking at the subtitles, trying (a teeny bit) to make sense of the story, I could not help but think of the New York Times article about parental love, and the effects of negative and positive conditioning, particularly, negative conditioning;  described in the article as parental withholding of affection to make children mind.

Die Zauberflote, which, of course, is in German, is a model of positive and negative conditioning (mainly negative).  Love is repeatedly withheld, both by authority figures, and even lovers themselves; punishment is meted out. Papageno, at the opening of the Opera, gets a padlock attached to his lips to teach him not to tell lies;  the Queen of the Night curses her daughter to make her try to kill Sorastro;  Tamino himself, must withhold affection from Pamina to pass his wisdom test;  the wizardly Sorastro says that vengeance does not live in the temple of wisdom, but also orders his bad servant, Monostatos, to get one hundred lashes; Papageno is threatened with a life of bread, water and imprisonment if he doesn’t give his hand to the withered old lady who is the disguised Papagena; Papageno is also nearly struck by lightening for chattering;  and even Tamino’s whole testing regimen is a bit of a punishment, arising from his original distrust of Sarasto and allegiance to the Queen of the Night.

It’s hard to come up with the positive conditioning–it’s mainly there in the form of false promises, I suppose, the promises of the Queen of the Night in particular.  (Praise and offers of rewards which should not be believed.)

In short, the path to love and wisdom and truth winds in and out of punishment, withheld affection, and artful alluring deception.   It’s a path that can only be negotiated through discipline, and with the help, the wondrous, miraculous help, of music.

Okay, it’s a cliché.  (And yes, I did see Amadeus)  But I couldn’t help thinking of the young Mozart, practicing the harpsichord  under the stern eye of his father, then overcoming all obstacles in his path (the crowned heads of Europe, but also that very same father) with the marvelous music he played and created.

In the opera, there is a bit of an exemption from all the discipline for the less high;   Papageno, the everyman, who says he doesn’t need to inhabit the exalted halls of wisdom for happiness, but is content with a glass of wine and a little turtledove wife, has slightly lesser trial.  These are passed by energy, good humor, loyalty, and, of course, the miraculous power of music;  in this case, the magic glockenspiel.

I sure wish I had one.