# Meaning of the Stacatto in "Der hölle rache". Die Zauberflöte



## ARAM (Oct 21, 2020)

Hi everybody. First of all, excuse my poor english, that's not my first language.

Now, to the question. I'm a TV quiz show writer and wanted to ask a question about the famous Magic Flute aria. I thought that the celebrated stacatto was the Queen of the Night Laughing, disney archvillain style, but in context, maybe it doesn't make much sense; after all, she is trying to convice her daughter of killing someone.

But if it's not a laugh, then... what does it mean?

Thank you in advance for your answers and opinions, I hope I'm posting this in the correct section of the forum and please excuse all my possible errors.

Aram.

P.S: About this other thread, my vote goes for Diana Damrau. Unmatched interpretation.


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## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

I think the literal meaning is something like "the wrath of Hell cooks in my heart" and I believe the staccato is just that. A bubbling desire for vengeance and death towards Sarastro.


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## Guest (Dec 27, 2020)

I have a German language book called _Mozarts Musiksprache_ ("Mozart's Music language") by G. Born, published in 1985.

In this book, the author shows that Mozart's music is rhetorical, and that the composer repeatedly resorts to rhetorical musical figures of the Baroque period, but also to musical figures of his own invention. Of course, this does not mean that all the examples given must be correct.
About the staccato notes in the Queen of the Night aria, the author writes the following (translated by me):



> "Do you see this steel here? - It is grinded for Sarastro. You will kill him ...", she asks her daughter, and then she shows with voice and gesture how Pamina is to handle the steel. She swings it high (sixteenth notes) and threatens the guardian of the circle of the sun standing before her in spirit with (eight) forward-twitching arm movements (staccato eighth notes) before stabbing deeply. These twitching knife thrusts are accompanied by metallic-hard staccato notes from the flutes and oboes.


In the book, the following musical example is also printed below this text:









Greetings,
Natural Horn


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## Handelian (Nov 18, 2020)

According to Thomas Bauman: ‘Mozart's masterstroke is the transformation he brought about by moving from the third degree to the flat sixth rather than to the fifth. ... No matter how often one hears this passage ... one is led by musical logic to expect, after D and F, A. But the Queen sings a terrifying B♭ instead.’
The first singer to perform the aria onstage was Mozart's sister-in-law Josepha Hofer, who at the time was 32. By all accounts, Hofer had an extraordinary upper register and an agile voice and apparently Mozart, being familiar with Hofer's vocal ability, wrote the two blockbuster arias to showcase it. So the intention was a virtuoso aria to bring the house down, which it usually does!


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