Reine de la nuit

Summary

Dominique Pagani approaches the Queen of the Night, in Mozart's The Magic Flute, as the nocturnal figure opposed to the solar Sarastro1. He consistently associates her with spells, illusions and dreams: as early as 2017, discussing Nerval's Angélique, he calls her a "bad Antigone" who lulls us with illusions2. In 2022, he presents her as the one who produces evil through illusions and spells3. In 2023, in a session on the Massacre of the Innocents, he notes that she wants the king of the sun killed and that she presides over dreams and the imagination4. In his Musicosophie sessions, he links this nocturnal world to that of the fetus, which sees nothing but hears, and thus to the link between music and hearing before birth5. He also sees her three ladies as the first term in a series of female trios6.

1. 1#2 From Lévi-Strauss to Nerval, on music3 Dec 2020 · 52:45
2. 2#4.3 Angélique (by Nerval)11 Dec 2017 · 13:53
3. 3Who is hiding beneath the surfaces? Aesthetics and politics20 May 2022 · 42:39
4. 4Birth and carnage: the Massacre of the Innocents22 Dec 2023 · 1:24:32
5. 5#2 From Lévi-Strauss to Nerval, on music3 Dec 2020 · 1:06:57
6. 6#14 Mozart once more7 Feb 2021 · 1:48:48

Summary produced automatically from 6 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.