Mozart took to his bed for the last time…

He had had dinner with Salieri. Had Salieri given him the fatal dose? Was it larger than the others, which, according to Wolf, had been quite small? Was this because of the extraordinary success of his last major opera, The Magic Flute? Had he given away the secret they were sworn to keep? Of this wondrous gift….

They all knew what was going on…nobody lifted a finger to help him…

His unusual gift of Zauber had to be contained…it had to be controlled…or it would threaten all that they held dear…in the darkness…

It was inevitable that Wolf would die…he knew it too…

He was surrounded by those who had agreed to his death, and yet he kept on producing music…

He continued working on the Requiem, which he knew was for himself…up to the end…

His body by this time was full of poison, given in increments throughout his life, at times, even by those he loved and trusted…

There was no autopsy, of course…

Like a bag of sand, his body was tossed into a lime pit…

The truth would never come to light…

It was, in fact, a perfect murder…

in fact,

the first

Murder Most Foul…

Tangled up in a vortex…

A vortex of time and space swirls around.  It is confusing and often loud, but not everyone can hear it.  It surrounds the Zauberflote…There are waves of energy coming through it continually…sometimes waves of shalom, other times waves of angst.  There is a dark angel in the vortex, trying to control the waves.  There are a few people in the vortex; some past, some present. Impressions of them filter through…There are influences…there is night and fog, a threat of oblivion, as the night angel tries to silence the living, but by the zauber they manage to escape…there are impressions of things to come, and odd coincidences that bring new things to life…it is magical, and at times frightening…we are all caught up in it…all the real-life characters of the opera…the Queen of the Night is gone now, but another — a paler version — tries to take her place.  Monostatos is not just one man, still spinning falsehoods and madly conducting a small orchestral group…but also a large orchestra of the same name, pulling the wool over the eyes of the citizens who support them…keeping secret what they know is happening…

The vortex stretches from Vienna to New York, and from there, to Minnesota…we are all tangled up it it, and right now things are not really making sense…we seem to be tumbling, falling apart, losing each other as the lies are unmasked and the truth comes to the light…and it seems that there may be someone else in the vortex…it’s hard to tell…sometimes seeming to send direction, at others appearing to try to ignite the vortex…around it all, in the sound of the flute, there is also is a voice…

Update March 25, 2021

I seem to keep bumping into someone in the vortex.  It is someone who is rather pushy.  Most of the influences in the vortex are quite subtle — from those who live on another plane.  But this — whatever it is — is noisy, and not a lot of fun. The energy seems to be most alive during the night, Central US time.  Sometimes there are visual impressions.  Sometimes there seems to be hints of music.  Whatever it is, if I could get away from it, I would.

But that may not be possible.

It may be some sort of thorn in the flesh.

Or it may have something to do with this mysterious connection that I am trying to decipher…

After the lockout…

I gave a series of concerts in the Art Room of the Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church. One was all-Mozart, one all-Bach, and in a third was mixed. As I put up posters everywhere from Orchestra Hall to Dinkytown, the hang-up phone calls to the phone number I had posted continued, as well as the ongoing shunning by Monostatos and other players. I became concerned, not only for my own well-being, but for that of my children.

The man I call “Monostatos” had enlisted the MO lawyers to try to keep from having to pay child support for the children he had so enthusiastically adopted just over a year earlier. He had also threatened my life on a number of occasions, including two which involved calling the Police in Hopkins, where we lived. I did not press charges at that time because I had no doubt that I would not live to see my children grow up if I did. For the same foolish reason I also did not ask for a restraining order. I decided to go under the radar and protect my children.

Our lives were not easy. All of this was extremely difficult for my children, who are the most flexible and good-natured people that I know…to this day. All the hopes they had for a stable environment, as well as mine for them, came crushing down on us, while Monostatos and his colleagues played on as if nothing had happened. I felt as though, by deliberately denying our credentials, they were taking food from the mouths of my children. In fact, I found a cruel irony in their vigorous complaints about all the hardships they had to endure during their own 18-month lockout.

But then, that is how the Zauberflote works — what others intend for us becomes their own fate…

Update 2.26.21

Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, where the Zauberflote was at one time played on the darkened stage, while Monostatos and his cronies crawled out of the woodwork and behaved very badly, has been dark since last March. The players’ salaries have been slashed by 25 per cent.  A recent article on Slipped Disc describes their latest deficit woes…

https://slippedisc.com/2021/02/crisis-at-minnesota-orchestra/

Is this what happens when you lock out Mozart?

Hurricane Dorian and my family…

Hurricane Dorian has been stalled over the Bahamas, and is now moving toward the coast of Florida. Hopefully, it will skirt the coast; but it seems to be increasing in size. It was the most powerful storm of the year at one point…thankfully, now it is only a Category 2.

When I first heard there was to be a hurricane by that name, I said, “Uh-oh.” I had a bad feeling about it. Not because of the story, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, about a man who remained young while committing criminal acts, while the painting of him aged instead, but for an odd connection. In my saga based on our family, Piper to the Alternative, Pamina’s father’s name is Dorian. His character is duplicitous and deceitful. He does come to a bad end.

To add to my concern, the monster storm Katrina, of 2005, was my daughter’s nickname. Her birth father called her, “Katrina, Katrina, ballerina.” So I was already on guard for a potentially devastating storm.

Dorian has so far wreaked untold havoc on the Bahamas — my parents used to vacation there, to play golf, before he became very ill. It’s headed toward Florida, where his condition allowed them to leave Flemington, New Jersey for a winter trip. They went to Cape Canaveral to witness a launch of the space shuttle. It was the Challenger liftoff, a terrible tragedy.

And so I am playing die zauberflote and joining many of you in sending prayers to all in the path of Dorian, in hopes that lives will be spared and property damage minimal…and all these odd coincidences without merit…

Die Zauberflote and the “Mozart Effect”…a mystery?M4B*

There was a point in time, not so long ago, when it seemed that just about everyone was enamored with the concept of the “Mozart Effect”. Why, it helps children to be smarter! It’s great to listen to during childbirth! It’s good for stress! You name it, there seemed to be some lovely quality or another at work whenever one listened to a piece of Wolfgang Mozart’s music. And this is as it should be, as it is my position that his music is a gift of God, and generates shalom.

So, it would be only natural to expect that die zauberflote — which also has the “Mozart Effect” would be welcomed with enthusiasm. Why would it not? one might ask…

But no — people, upon hearing me play die zauberflote, tend to fall into two camps — either they weep tears of joy or they become silent and may also grit their teeth. Someone even recently suggested that I ask to have a study done on the effects of people listening to die zauberflote, as the responses seem to be so profound. In fact, I have a request in at the UofM, which, ironically, is where I did my flute performance major some time ago. Ironically, the response there was — you guessed it — completely bizarre.

It puzzles me that I can go into a worldly place, such as a school, and have someone call out, “Glory be, the great lady is here!” and I can go into a congregation, or onto the darkened stage at Orchestra Hall and find silence so deep you could hear a pin drop. And then, slowly, people may start to crawl out of the woodwork, so to speak, and behave very strangely indeed.

Just one of the mysteries of die zauberflote, I guess. I should know by now…

*M4B=Mozart For Believers

What if Wolf never believed the lie?

Wolf was surrounded by people who were attempting to deceive him. Some were family, some were ‘friends’, some were colleagues. They flattered him. They tried to gain access to his inner circle. They tried to gain his trust. Why? Let me explain.

Wolf had been given an unusual gift, one that none of them had. It was a gift of perfection in music. To make a musical analogy — his gift was like a perfect fourth or fifth, whereas there gifts were like major or minor intervals. That is what made Wolf’s music incomparable. They hated that, and they hated him for that.

None of this is really new — it was alluded to in the movie “Amadeus”. Salieri was, in essence, symbolic of all the treachery and deceit that surrounded Wolf. But Salieri may have known a secret that he tried to use to gain an advantage — that Wolf had been a victim of being caused bodily harm through the administering of small doses of toxic substances. This may have started when Wolf was living with his birth family. Perhaps it was the jealous Nannerl who was secretly doing this. Wolf’s mother, Maria Anna, was unable to protect him. She died in his arms in Paris. Leopold and Nannerl tried to blame her death on Wolf. This added a terrible burden to Wolf’s own grief.

The ongoing administration of toxic substances without Wolf’s knowledge or permission could have been done as a means of controlling both him and his extraordinary gift. As a result, Wolf was supposed to be little more than a mind-controlled zombie. When Wolf married Constanze, the same thing could have happened by her hand. The antipathy between Constanze and Nannerl, in fact, led to them being buried at opposite ends of Vienna.

Were Wolf’s continual moving from one place to another, as well as his being supposedly ‘not good with money’ in fact connected to this ongoing pogram against him? If so, was he supposed to believe that it was God’s will that he suffer the possibility of bodily harm by those who broke bread with him? If this were to be the case, would that not account for perhaps some of his frantic activity to compose as many pieces as possible as quickly as possible?

But, in a worse-case-scenario, surrounded by a brood of vipers, a vortex of the evil eye, in fact, is it possible that Wolf never believed this lie?

I offer to you Wolf’s last major opera, Die Zauberflote, which defines with some clarity this great gift that he was allowed to be steward of during his life on earth. If so, he knew this gift better than anyone. He believed in the power of this great gift — a gift of brilliance never again seen in music — and a gift of shalom, no matter how trying his earthly circumstances were.

The Mozart ‘tornado’ concert…

After Monostatos left my children and me, after having held us hostage for about 666 days, I decided that despite the threats to my life and slander of my character I would not be silenced. And so, with the resources at my disposal — which were limited by having been musically ‘locked out’ by Monostatos and his cohorts at the Minnesota Orchestra — I booked the Art Room at the Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church for an all-Mozart concert. The photo for the posters was taken by one of their own. A poster hung in the stage entry of Orchestra Hall. It included a phone number to request tickets. My answering machine took quite a beating, as tens, if not hundreds of hang-up calls were made every night from that point on. I figured Monostatos may have had something to do with that, and did my best to brush it off.

I had found a very good accompanist to work with. That was surprising, as most pianists seemed to have only a limited understanding of how to perform Mozart. I was pleased and relieved — something good will come of this, I thought. Despite the answering machine omen, that is…

Everything was going beautifully. I gave a pre-concert at the Minneapolis Public Library during lunchtime a few days earlier, that was very well received. I had learned by then to trust die zauberflote — and also to expect a lot of twists and turns. Little did I know what lay ahead…

The morning of that June 14th was just gorgeous. It was becoming a bit humid, but that was to be expected at this time of year. I gave my darling children, who would be coming with me, a brief lecture on not running around and making noise while I was performing. I naively thought that would be the worst of my concerns.

Then the weather began to change. A friend called to tell me that it looked like there was a tornado atop the IDS building in downtown Minneapolis. Another friend called to say they would not be able to make the concert because a large tree had fallen across their driveway in the Kenwood area. I quickly assessed our situation — the weather was still good in Hopkins, so we packed up to head downtown. Then the accompanist called to say that a tornado had touched down on his apartment building and he was suffering a panic attack. Also, his ride had canceled due to the weather. I asked if he could take a bus, but he refused. I called another friend who lived nearby and they offered to give him a ride. Other friends called to let me know that they were stuck in the Har Mar mall, where another tornado had hit, and would not be able to attend.

Though tempted to give up in anguish at the sudden and frightening turn of events, I headed downtown with my children and flute. The Art Room was humid. As I warmed up, sweat was dripping down my chin, and my fingers were sliding on the keys. Great! I thought. What next?

But gradually people trickled in. Ashen, my accompanist finally arrived, looking like he had seen a ghost. The skies had settled. The flurry of tornadoes had stopped. My children were playing quietly, as a neighbor kept an eye on them.

And then the concert flew by. Literally, lifted on wings. The culminating piece was Wolf’s D Major Flute Concerto. The extraordinary shalom of die zauberflote was heard throughout the room, to delighted and at times even rapturous applause — as much for my gifted accompanist as for me…

Once again, the darkness had lost…and all was well…and die zauberflote had been taken out of the night of the darkened stage at Orchestra Hall into the light of day, and of the common people, the salt of the earth…

An as-yet undefined subplot in the opera Die Zauberflote as prophecy…

There are some straightforward characters in Mozart’s last major opera, The Magic Flute, that correspond to those in real life — my Mother,for example — the real-life Queen of the Night who managed to bewitch just about everyone (but me); my Father, who gave me my first flute; Monostatos, who is a player with the Minnesota Orchestra, and of course, my three children, who are represented as such. The reality, however, may be even more profound than the opera (granted, Wolf didn’t have all the time in the world either) in that the children who save Pamina from despair when Tamino is silent are actually her own children. Filled with fury, the Queen of the Night comes after the children and tries to use them in her machinations, attempting to leave Pamina bereft, and thereby contributing greatly to Pamina’s despair. Monostatos also goes after the children and attempts to enlist them to the Queen’s agenda…

…and so, all that is left for Pamina is the wondrous sound and assurance of die zauberflote…

A few of the mysteries behind the opera The Magic Flute…

Almost from the moment of its premiere the public was talking about the occult significance of Wolfgang Mozart’s last major opera, The Magic Flute. There was so much to consider — after all, it was full of Masonic symbols, and, despite the fact that it was a jocular singspiel, it held a pregnant sense of awe — of things not explained. To make things even more convincing, Mozart himself died a few weeks later. Was there a connection? Was Mozart poisoned? What happened? Everyone wanted to know. Or was it just the hand of fate? Some asked. Perhaps writing the Requiem under someone else’s name was what did him in? Others questioned.

Well, for one reason or another, the mystery has continued to this day. And for good reason. What if the opera were, in fact, a prophecy that included Wolf himself? What if that prophecy was to come to life over 200 years later?

Unthinkable! said many. Impossible, said others. Keep the lid on it! said the assassins…no one must know!

However, if this were to be the case, let me provide some details that are implied in the opera. I don’t ask anyone to believe what I say, simply to test my words. Just for the moment take as an hypothesis that the opera being prophecy is simply a possibility — extraordinary though that might be.

Here might be a few insights —

Pamina’s father dies after presenting her with the magic flute. Her Mother, the Queen of the Night, flies into a rage as she feels her power is threatened by her daughter’s having the flute. Sarastro, Pamina’s step-father, steps in and kidnaps Pamina to keep her out of harm’s way, but says nothing to Pamina, who is confused and frightened. Sarastro happens to be Wernher von Braun, with whom Pamina and her family have a connection. Sarastro’s temple of Isis and Osiris is the occult secrets of those committed in the US and Russia to going to the Moon and Mars.  It has, in fact, a number of different locations.  Pamina is brought to a place of relative safety, in the frozen tundra of the Northlands…

The three children are Pamina’s children. They are an even greater threat to her Mother, who comes after them and tries to bewitch them and steal them from Pamina, who is horrified. The Queen of the Night holds the children ransom, creating even more terror. To make matters even more sinister, the Queen has a ‘spare’, so to speak, in Pamina’s sister, Starla, (the so-called ‘other Queen’) who assists her Mother in stealth to try to turn the children against Pamina. And, last-but-certainly not least — add to that the possibility that Monostatos, who happens to be a bass player in an orchestra of false servants in Minnesota, has also attempted, frantically and viciously, to insinuate himself into the lives of Pamina and her children, in order to help the Queen.  He tries to cause Pamina bodily harm and slanders her to his colleagues.  She continues on, following the direction of the Zauberflote, which is always changing, and is always charming.

Pamina has had glimpses of Tamino, but nothing more, except his picture. When she sings her desperate aria “Ach, ich ful’s”…she feels she has lost everything. As the children are being deceived by the Queen, even they cannot help her.

And yet, Pamina perseveres, in love and in faith…with the help of her longest best-friend, Papageno.  Papageno gives Pamina words of hope and faith at just the right moments…and together they keep moving forward…

Update 12.24.20 (M4B*)

I went to Orchestra Hall this week, on December 21st, in fact. That was also the night of the great “Christmas Star”. That day is significant to me because it is the birthday of Monostatos, who affected our lives so profoundly, and it is also the day we were married, long ago. (That lasted 666 days.) I decided to lay hands on the doors of Orchestra Hall and rebuke the enemy in the Name of Yeshua in order to demolish all of the strongholds connected with Monostatos persecuting me on that darkened stage because of the Zauberflote.

It was a cloudy day, cold, with a bitter wind.  I had invited Papageno to go with me, but he had declined. Once I reached the Nicollet Mall I was relieved that he had done so, for what I was witnessing was unexpected and almost overwhelming.  The mall stores are basically shuttered.  The only exception is Target.  There are no Christmas lights.  There are no lights at all. It is desolate. Dystopian. Like Blade Runner. Orchestra Hall had stacks of cardboard boxes in its lobby.  There are signs on the pavement reminding everyone to stand six feet apart.  WCCO is shuttered. They don’t show you that on the evening news. There were no crowds. Just people milling and talking, all carrying bags of some sort.  Acrid cigarette smoke. A woman shouting into her phone. Stragglers walking aimlessly.

Minnegeddon in Minneapolis, I thought.  What else could I call it?

I then went over to Monostatos’ apartment building and laid hands on the door there and rebuked the enemy again.  Hopefully, this nightmare involving him and the Minnesota Orchestra will now come to an end.

Is this what happens when you lock out Mozart?

During the 2012 lockout of the Minnesota Orchestra players I asked a family member who knew Mr. Vanska’s assistant for help getting to Mr. Vanska, to ask to play the Zauberflote for him.  She replied that she ‘didn’t want me to use her contacts.’  I was saddened by this, as the letter I had written to Mr. Vanska had gone unanswered, and I did not even know for certain if he had received it.  But now I could see that it wasn’t enough.  A slap on the wrist for Monostatos was not in everyone’s highest good.

But this is.

They are locked out yet again.  Orchestra Hall is dark yet again.  But this time I don’t think the lights will go back on until we all have some answers.

*M4B=Mozart for Believers

Vortex of the Evil Eye…

When I began writing the draft for what has become “Vienna Mystery” I had a strong conviction that the real story of what happened to Wolfgang Mozart was yet to be revealed.  In all my research — and I have read everything I could find on his life, both in English and German — it became evident to me that there was a mystery of grand proportions around his death and the events that led up to it.  The irreverent movie “Amadeus” skirts around these issues, but in a mocking way — as though to say that there was so much lawlessness around what happened to Wolf that nobody would ever be able to get through it, much less communicate the truth in any manner that was coherent.

Gradually, I came to see that there appeared to be a vortex around Wolf, that consisted of those who flattered him to his face and worked to destroy him behind his back.  They acted in secret and in stealth.  This vortex of ill-intent surrounded Wolf, so that he was unable to see outside of it.  Instead, it seemed that he was dragged further and further down into it.

And then he died.

There was no autopsy.

There was no burial spot.

Those in the vortex expressed shock and dismay.  But then they quickly went about their business.  In at least one case, that involved making money off of Wolf’s music.

At one point I had an insight — that if a person of stature is removed from office, so to speak, that is not simply called a ‘murder’.  It is an assassination.  If this vortex of ill-intent consisted of people who had agreed to Wolf’s demise and then sandbagged him and tricked him until that happened, that would be an assassination that was supposed to remain undetected.

And, in unintended irony, did the dreadful “Amadeus” spill the beans? What if the vortex consisted not simply of Salieri, who is something of a red herring, but of all of those around him?

What if Mozart had been poisoned, not to kill him outright, but in small doses, to try to weaken him, so that he would then succumb to death by ‘natural causes’?

Oh wait — didn’t Wolf even say something to that effect himself?

While I was digging into those revelations, though I did find it curious that some of those around me seemed to find my involvement in research of the assassination of JFK somewhat hilarious, I was blessed with ignorance that something similar had happened to me.

I was systematically poisoned by my birth family.  I think the reason was to weaken me, and, in my case, control me.  I think this sinister treatment was part of a campaign to create a false persona.  I could be wrong.

Perhaps the one remaining member of my birth family, my sister Angela,  can clear that up for me.