Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to The Magic Flute
- Cambridge Companions to Music
- The Cambridge Companion to The Magic Flute
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Musical Examples
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Conception and Context
- Part II Music, Text, and Action
- Part III Approaches and Perspectives
- 12 Seeking Enlightenment in Mozart’s Magic Flute
- 13 Birdsong and Hieroglyphs: Exoticism and Enlightened Orientalism in The Magic Flute
- 14 Partial Derivatives: Sources, Types, and Tropes in The Magic Flute
- 15 Pamina, the Queen, and the Representation of Women
- 16 Blackness and Whiteness in The Magic Flute: Reflections from Shakespeare Studies
- Part IV Reception, Interpretation, and Influence
- Further Reading
- Index
16 - Blackness and Whiteness in The Magic Flute: Reflections from Shakespeare Studies
from Part III - Approaches and Perspectives
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 November 2023
- The Cambridge Companion to The Magic Flute
- Cambridge Companions to Music
- The Cambridge Companion to The Magic Flute
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Musical Examples
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Conception and Context
- Part II Music, Text, and Action
- Part III Approaches and Perspectives
- 12 Seeking Enlightenment in Mozart’s Magic Flute
- 13 Birdsong and Hieroglyphs: Exoticism and Enlightened Orientalism in The Magic Flute
- 14 Partial Derivatives: Sources, Types, and Tropes in The Magic Flute
- 15 Pamina, the Queen, and the Representation of Women
- 16 Blackness and Whiteness in The Magic Flute: Reflections from Shakespeare Studies
- Part IV Reception, Interpretation, and Influence
- Further Reading
- Index
Summary
In this chapter, I consider how we might address the legacies of race and racism in The Magic Flute and its performance history, and what opportunities there might be to re-envision the Singspiel, by looking at parallels with Shakespeare repertory and #ShakeRace studies. Scholars working at the intersections of premodern critical race theory, postcolonial studies, Shakespeare studies, and performance studies have for decades considered how what Kim Hall calls “race thinking” permeates Shakespeare’s texts, contexts, and audiences, as well as productions and interpretations in our own time. What kind of freedom or flexibility might we have to adapt, translate, appropriate, and “unsettle” The Magic Flute in scholarship, performance, and pedagogy, by taking our cue from experimental approaches to Shakespeare?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to The Magic Flute , pp. 252 - 272Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023