(Ger.: ‘magic opera’).
A term, used more often by music and theatre historians than by contemporary librettists and composers, for a Singspiel with spoken dialogue that relies to an unusual extent on stage machinery and spectacular effects. In theory the term could be applied to any opera that employs magic; but in practice its use is normally restricted to the kind of magic Singspiel that was a staple of the Viennese popular repertory during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Philipp Hafner’s Megära, die förchterliche Hexe (a ‘Zauberlustspiel’, 1763) is an early example, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte the most famous one. The Wenzel Müller-Perinet adaptation, Megera (1806) is actually subtitled ‘Zauberoper’. Müller’s Kaspar der Fagottist, and Wranitzky’s and Weber’s adaptations of Wieland’s Oberon, are typical examples of the recurrent motif of the hero being granted supernatural aids to enable him to rescue a woman in peril. The Kauer-Hensler Das Donauweibchen (1798), an Ondine variant long popular in German lands, inverts the usual formula by having magic separate the earthly lovers.
Numerous operas employing magic to a more or less marked extent continued to be written and performed during the remainder of the 19th and much of the 20th century; Schreker’s Der Schmied von Gent (1932), indeed, is subtitled ‘Grosse Zauberoper’. However, the Zauberoper genre in its original and limited sense tends to exclude operas (for instance Wagner’s Ring, and the Strauss-Hofmannsthal Die Frau ohne Schatten and Die ägyptische Helena) in which, though magic plays an important part, the emphasis is primarily on more exalted concerns
G. Weisstein: ‘Geschichte der Zauberpossen’, Spemanns goldenes Buch des Theaters, ed. R. Genée and others (Berlin, 1902, 2/1912)
O. Rommel, ed.: Barocktradition im österreichisch-bayrischen Volkstheater, i: Die Maschinenkomödie (Leipzig, 1935/R); ii: Die romantisch-komischen Volksmärchen (Leipzig, 1936/R)
O. Rommel: Die Alt-Wiener Volkskomödie (Vienna, 1952)
P. Branscombe: W.A. Mozart: Die Zauberflöte (Cambridge, 1991)
B. Heinel: Die Zauberoper: Studien zu ihrer Entwicklungsgeschichte anhand ausgewählter Beispiele von den Anfängen bis zum Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts (diss., U. of Freiburg, 1993)
PETER BRANSCOMBE