The Magic Flute ideals of Sarastro's community and seeks to join it. Separately, then together, Tamino and Pamina undergo severe trials of initiation, which end in triumph, with the Queen and her cohorts vanquished. The earthy Papageno, who accompanies Tamino on his quest, fails the trials completely but is rewarded anyway with the hand of his ideal female companion Papagena. The opera was the culmination of a period of increasing involvement by Mozart with Schikaneder's theatrical troupe, which since 1789 had been the resident company at the Theater auf der Wieden. Mozart was a close friend of one of the singer-composers of the
Haydn and Mozart symphony and a chorus, both probably from [the oratorio] "Il ritorno di Tobia"") and Mozart ("a new concert aria, probably 'Misero! o sogno!' [K. 431], and, on the first night, a piano concerto") At the time of this meeting, Haydn was the most celebrated composer in Europe. Mozart's own reputation was definitely on the rise. His opera "The Abduction from the Seraglio" had been premiered with great success in Vienna, and was being produced in several other cities. Haydn would have been about 52 at the time, Mozart about 28. Jens Peter Larsen suggests that "quartet playing was central to