Mozart's last opera, The Magic Flute,
enjoys a high regard of long repute.
Although Swedish Christian Freemasonry
was not (alas!) its story's inspiration,
the music (not the words) is the summation
of Mozart's most accomplished artistry.
The music soars to Plato's high ideal;
and it invites the listener to feel---
from first to final note---the beautiful
expression as a love song Mozart's soul
composed for the Mason's fraternity.
ENVOI:
A mason, once, I wish I could have been
raised in the Swedish rite; or there, again,
admitted. In that Christian company,
friendship in Christ blooms to its full degree.
Starward
[jlc]
Author's Notes/Comments:
I do not normally care for long annotations to poems, but in this case I believe an exception is justified. Two vast differences separate American Masonic practice from the Swedish. In America, Masonic accomplishment is seen primarily in the perfect rote delivery of the ritual's words (whether understood or not). In my own lodge, this was such an obsession that, once, a Masonic brother was expelled from the lodge because he spoke the words of the ritual in a very heavy Appalachian accent. In the Swedish practice, knowledge of the degrees' spiritual content and meaning is held to be the higher value. (I have been told that Swedish Masons holding one of the chairs are permitted to read the ritual book if memorization is not possible). American Masonic practice is also to promote Deism, with a tacit denial of Christ's divinity (except in certain "higher" degrees of the Scottish and York Rites). American Masonry also declares, in the third (or Master Mason degree; which is, in the entire system, the supreme degree) that salvation consists in doing good deeds, and avoiding evil, rather than belief in the Redemption secured by the Death and Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, God's Son.
On December 6, 1991, I had the privilege of attending a peformance of Mozart's opera in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the Temple of Scottish Rite. The opera was performed by students at the University of Cincinnati's school of music; only the orchestra's conductor was not a student. Special effects such as lighting and sound were provided by Masons behind the scenes; but the singers and members of the orchestra were students. The even was even covered by local newspapers, being newsworthy because December 1991 was the 200th anniversary of the first performance; and because this performance, in the Scottish Rite Temple, was the very first time the opera and been performed within a Masonic facility as far as is commonly known. While watching a performance, anywhere, a Mason will see an entirely different performance than someone who is not a Mason. I, myself, began to weep openly when Sarastro (Master of the Lodge) begins to sing is aria about the Egyptian gods Isis and Osiris. That closed the first act, after which I was rebuked by my late, first wife for a silly display of emotion in front of people we hardly knew. After cookies and punch in the hospitality room, we returned to our seats. As the second act began, with the initiation of Tamino, I was overwhelmed by the memories of my own initiation, passing, and raising to the degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and Master Mason respectively, and began weeping uncontrollably and loudly at that point. Needless to say, the ride back home seemed much longer that it normally would have been.
