The Magic Flute / YMMV

Alternative Character Interpretation:
- There are some who believe that the Queen of the Night was the good guy after all and Sarastro really is the Big Bad. Particularly common with feminist re-interpretations of the opera. After all, throughout the first act it's really only the Queen's word against the Priests' and Sarastro's on who's the good or bad guys. Their main argument why the Queen's side of the story is false is because she is a woman. It isn't until the second act that she really goes crazy.
- Is Sarastro a wise and righteous ruler trying to bring wisdom to the world? Is he a tyrant who surrounds himself with yes men and slaves so his authority can never be challenged? Or a cult leader who gave Tamino and Pamina a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome and manipulated them into becoming the newest members?
Awesome Music: The Queen of the Night's second (and more famous) aria, Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen ("Hell's vengeance boils in my heart"), is one of the top contenders for "greatest soprano aria ever written," so much so that it is Mozart's only composition included on the Voyager Golden Record.
- Beethoven thought The Magic Flute overall was the best music Mozart ever wrote.
Don't Shoot the Message: The opera rightfully calls out the Queen and Monostatos for — respectively — their manipulative and predatory behavior. However, it also unfortunately connects said behavior to — respectively, again — the characters gender and race, pushing it squarely into the Values Dissonance category.
Draco in Leather Pants: Some commentators go too far when calling out the Values Dissonance surrounding Monostatos and insist on viewing him as an innocent victim who does nothing wrong. They accuse Sarastro of punishing him just for doing his job of trying to stop Pamina from running away; somehow they forget that sexually harassing her wasn't a necessary part of that job.
Ensemble Dark Horse: The lovable Papageno seems to be the favorite character of many people.
Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: Some people will insist that every single thing in the opera is a Masonic symbol, including that the music being based on triads symbolizes the Masonic significance of the number 3.^note
Fair for Its Day: The 1975 film sets the overture to reaction shots of the "audience" ^note who are a quite diverse crowd in terms of race, age, and sex, making the statement that opera is for everyone. Sadly, this doesn’t carry over into the actual performance, where the moors are played by white actors in make-up. Even so, they are nowhere near as stereotypical as in the German filmed version from only four years earlier.
Fridge Logic:
- If the Queen and her servants lose their powers when the sun rises, why do they decide to attack the temple two minutes before sunrise? Especially since the Queen very successfully infiltrates it hours before that.
- Also the question of why the Queen's three ladies suggest the three boys as traveling companions for Tamino and Papageno, even though the boys are obviously not on the Queen's side. This was averted in the Bergman film, though.
- And, by the way, why did Tamino not resort to sign language or something to indicate that he was not allowed to speak to Pamina, instead of just letting her go off and try to kill herself?
Karmic Overkill: It was certainly wrong of Papageno to lie to Tamino about killing the serpent, but getting deprived of food AND having his mouth padlocked for it seems a tad harsh (especially considering he didn't know it was the Three Ladies who killed the snake, so he wasn't intentionally trying to take credit for their heroic deed.)
Nightmare Fuel: The Branagh film's nightmarish portrayal of the song before the trials. As the song begins, the camera slowly zooms out to reveal a wall of sandbags with distorted human faces, staring right at you. It comes completely out of nowhere!
Older Than They Think: The Queen of the Night is a part for a soprano diva, with very challenging music and some of the highest notes a soprano is expected to sing, in the midst of an opera that includes mostly simple music written for performers who were actors first and singers second. Mozart may be the best known composer of this type of role, but it's actually a tradition going back to earlier Singspiels rather than a new innovation in the format.
The Scrappy: Monostatos; in most productions he isn't the least bit funny.
- Which would make him an Ethnic Scrappy if you're dealing with a production that is faithful to the text, as opposed to ones that omit the racist elements of his character.
Sequelitis: Emanuel Schikaneder wrote a sequel Das Labyrinth with music by Peter von Winter which premiered seven years after Mozart's death, unfortunately it doesn’t come even close to The Magic Flute in terms of popularity.
Signature Scene: The Queen of the Night's aria. You know which one.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The Queen of the Night's plot to have Pamina assassinate Sarastro is resolved in a single scene. At least the princess gets another reason to languish soon enough.
Unintentionally Sympathetic: Thanks to the Values Dissonance, the Queen of the Night can come off as this.
Values Dissonance:
- Sarastro and his priests have some pretty sexist lines at times, which are generally Bowdlerized during the translation from German. Not to mention that it's the female ruler, and her black Dragon, who get cast as the baddies...
  - It can also be argued that while Sarastro is presented as the "better" choice between the two camps, his position is too extreme. Note how Pamina, acting on the information of the boys (the only group that is not really on either side), apparently breaks the priesthood's rules and reminds Tamino to use the damn Macguffin, probably saving everybody. Very likely a much stronger feminist message than Mozart and Schikaneder intended, but ridiculously easy to incorporate for a modern audience.
  - In fact, this is discussed in the work. Well, kind of:
  Ein Weib, das Nacht und Tod nicht scheut / ist würdig und wird eingeweiht.
  (A woman who does not fear night nor death / is worthy and will be ordained.)
- Monostatos in general. He was originally intended to be played in blackface, and Pamina is scared of him largely because he's Black. The racial element is usually glossed over in modern productions, if not omitted entirely (by simply using race-blind casting - which is pretty standard in opera these days - and omitting all references to his race). For instance, David McVicar's staging for the Royal Opera House presents Monostatos as a decrepit-looking old man who Looks Like Orlok, as shown in this video.
What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: The Queen of the Night is said to have been based on the conservative Empress Maria Theresa, who opposed the "Enlightenment" (get it?) and favored the black-habited Jesuits (get it? black, like Monostatos?) — fervent opponents of the Freemasons (hence also some of the sexism of the opera). Following from this, it is quite likely that Tamino represents Joseph II, while Pamina possibly represents Austria or perhaps Europe in general.
- Alternatively, Tamino is the human soul searching for Enlightenment; Pamina is the Spirit of Enlightenment; the Queen is the Roman Catholic Church, which was the guardian of the Spirit of Enlightenment until she became more interested in power and wealth than wisdom, when the Spirit went to live with Sarastro, who is Freemasonry.
- On that reading, Papageno and Papagena have a very important role. Without them, the world is divided into the Enlightened (Freemasons) and the Villains. They show that the world is not so black-and-white, but that there are plenty of good and decent people who just aren't made for divine wisdom and enlightenment, yet deserve to live and be happy.

YMMV / The Magic Flute

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