I always heard that Singspiele were not, in their time, taken seriously as operas anyway (Amadeus, if I remember, makes this point by translating Singspiel as "vaudeville"), and that Weber's Der Freischutz was the first German-language opera to be taken seriously as opera.
A WMG for this opera?
The Queen is a Beldam (as in Coraline). She's beautiful (or looks that way at first), she's controlling, she's manipulative, she seems to have some power to warp her world around her, the three ladies seem to be not quite complete individual people, she seems to really love and need Parmina, but her alleged daughter is terrified by her, and she seems to have some kind of 'I'm Melting!' moment when it becomes clear Parmina is never coming back...
Re "The Other Wiki claims they are "cast into eternal night", but this editor, who has performed this opera, cannot recall any corroborations of such by the libretto itself.":
The line "wir alle gestuerzet in ewige Nacht" (of which "we are all cast into eternal night" is a reasonably accurate translation) is sung in unison by the Queen of the Night, the Three Ladies and Monostatos immediately before Sarastro's final recitative and the closing chorus.
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Just checked my copy of the libretto. Should've fixed that earlier.
For clarity, I'm not the person who put that line in. Can't carry a tune in a bucket.
Edited by Winter
"Genre-Busting: Considered the first true German Opera, and completely discards the labels of Opera Seria (drama) or Opera Buffa (comedy)."
What about The Abduction from the Seraglio?
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