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
Laurence Dale Laurence Dale Laurence Dale (born 1957) is an English tenor, artistic director and conductor. Laurence Dale studied singing at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Rudolf Piernay and the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Early leading roles included that of Hilarion in the Gilbert and Sullivan opera "Princess Ida" with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Ambrosian Opera Chorus in 1982, and Ramiro in Rossini's opera "La Cenerentola" with the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1983. Amongst many Mozartian rôles, as well as baroque and romantic, his portrayal of Tamino, with which he opened Mozart year in Salzburg in 1991 was