Had Mozart not succumbed to a streptococcal infection in 1791, the year might have been remembered as his annus mirabilis. In less than a year, the composer produced a remarkable sequence of works: two concertos – one for clarinet, the other for piano – the motet Ave verum corpus in D major, and two operas. Both of the operas are firmly embedded in the modern repertoire, but it is not the opera seria La clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus) that was immediately and permanently embraced by audiences, but its near-contemporary, the singspiel Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute).

First performed at Vienna’s Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in September 1791, in a production conducted by Mozart himself and with its librettist – the actor, impresario, and theatre owner Emanuel Schikaneder – playing Papageno, Die Zauberflöte was an unqualified success. Having won over Viennese audiences, Mozart’s ebullient score and Schikaneder’s fairy-tale-like plot dazzled German and thereafter European opera houses, a popular embrace that remains bear-like to this day. It is, by some accounts, the third most frequently performed opera in the world.