The story goes that it was written for the company at the suburban Theater auf der Wieden run by Mozart’s friend Emanuel Schikaneder, who wrote the libretto and played one of the key characters, Papageno. For the unfamiliar, the fairy tale centres on a prince, Tamino, who, while lost in a foreign land, sees a picture of Pamina, the daughter of the Queen of the Night, and falls in love at first sight. The queen tasks him with saving Pamina from the high priest Sarastro whom she paints as powerful and evil, and off Tamino goes, joined by bird-catcher Papageno. But all is not as it seems, as the hero discovers upon encountering Sarastro, and later, Pamina.