Archaic Narrative Motives in Mozart’s “The Magic Flute”

Abstract

One of the trends of modern Russian musicology is the study of archaic phenomena transmitted
in the process of historical development which retain their significance in modern musical culture.
The article is devoted to study of the archaic foundation of the literary text of Mozart’s “The
Magic Flute.” Based on methodological approaches developed in the study of archaic cultures
in literary criticism and art criticism, the phenomenology of the names of the key protagonists of
the composer’s original musical fairy tale and the plot motives stipulated by them are presented.
Analysis is carried out of the semantics of the fundamental motive of marriage, which in its turn
consists of a number of other motives: food, death, childbearing, speech generation, friendship,
struggle, punishment for lying, trials, fighting with snakes, transformation of an old woman into a
girl, kidnapping and saving the soul (the bride). The archaic view represents the relicts of archaic
culture; the mythologemes of night, a path, the World Tree; the archetypes of personae, mothers,
the anima, wanderers, and doubles. The highly artistic model of the mythological and poetic
structure of the Universe embodies the idea of finding a harmonious interaction between man and
nature, the moral principles of life in society, and tools for the formation of an individual culture.
A theatrical artistic concept of opera reflected the “critical points of cosmogenesis” (Pierre Teilhard
de Chardin) and recreated the initiation ritual, which in the eastern mysteries and western practices
metaphorically embody the cosmogony of the spirit. In “The Magic Flute” Mozart demonstrated
his original authorial myth of the soul aspiring to God and devoting itself to the service of art.

Keywords: Mozart, “The Magic Flute”, archaic model of the world, archaic model of culture;
archetypes and mythologemes, cosmogony of the world, cosmogony of the soul, carnival model of
culture, authorial myth, onomastic code of culture.