Making Mozart Politically Correct?

(Photo: Art Media/Heritage-Images)

"The recent bowdlerization of Mark Twain's 'Huckleberry Finn' -- one of the most 'liberal' novels ever penned, and widely deemed (before the advent of that fascism of the mind known as political correctness) to be the Great American Novel -- is just the freshest example of this juvenile cultural self-loathing. There are productions of Mozart's 'The Magic Flute' that have edited out all references to the Moor Monostatos' blackness, lest it cause offense -- even though the opera's principal theme of the struggle of good against evil, day against night and light against darkness has nothing whatsoever to do with slavery or African-Americans." [Source]

PHOTO: Costume design for Monostatos, mid 20th century. Monostatos, a Moor in the service of Sarastro, the High Priest of Isis and Osiris. A character from "The Magic Flute" ("Die Zauberflote"), opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) with libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder (1751-1812) which was first produced in Vienna in 1791. The plot has overtones of Freemasonry. Monostatos is said to represent the clergy, particularly the Jesuits and religious orders. From the Bibliotheque de l'Opera, Paris. [Source]