The winter solstice is a significant event in many pagan traditions. It marks the shortest day and longest night of the year, and is celebrated as the rebirth of the sun. Pagan winter solstice ceremonies are rich with symbolism and rituals that honor the cycles of nature. One of the main ideas behind pagan winter solstice ceremonies is the concept of light overcoming darkness. This idea is central to many pagan traditions, as the winter solstice represents the beginning of the gradual return of sunlight and the promise of longer days. In these ceremonies, participants often light candles or bonfires to symbolize the returning light and to bring warmth and hope into their lives.

The Magic Flute Garden Ristorante

We recently discovered a new favorite restaurant of ours, what we like to call a little gem in the big city. The Magic Flute is a lively Italian restaurant with outdoor patio seating, which is rare in San Francisco. When we dine there for dinner, we love to sit outside under the twinkling lights in the back patio, which is decorated to give a romantic backyard garden feel. On the weekends, they are becoming quite popular for their brunch menu.

Not only is the wide selection of food delicious, but the service at this restaurant is top notch. We have gone there to dine so often now that we see the same staff all of the time. Most of the staff know us by name now, and greet us with a warm smile and small talk whenever we walk in. My favorite dish is the sole with mashed potatoes, spinach and beurre blanc (they only have it as a special sometimes).

The last time we went for dinner, we had the pleasure of being served by one of the friendliest waiters I have ever encountered at a busy restaurant. He was smiling the whole time, and was interested in why we were dining at The Magic Flute that night. We got to talking with him, and he told us how much he enjoyed his job. He went on to explain that meeting new people all of the time and hearing about there lives through celebrating special occasions with them at the restaurant kept his passion for his job alive. I appreciated his genuine interest in getting to know us, and his hospitality throughout the evening. He went above and beyond to get our food order right and make sure we had a wonderful dining experience. Little things like offering to adjust the heat lamp or bringing us extra bread when he saw our bowl was empty made us feel at home.

It was so refreshing to see someone so passionate about their career. Have you ever had or thought about a career in the restaurant or foodservice industry? In America, the restaurant industry offers one in three Americans their first job. I had my first job in foodservice, working at an ice cream parlor! The National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation (NRAEF) developed the Food and Beverage Service Competency Model – the first-ever competency model for the industry that creates a clear set of guidelines for those interested in or beginning a career in the foodservice industry, as well as the skills needed to advance in the industry. Restaurant and foodservice jobs offer valuable skills, such as teamwork, leadership, time management, and professionalism. I was able to build upon all of these skills while working my first job in the industry, and took them with me to all of my subsequent jobs.

The restaurant industry is a great place to begin and chart a life-long career, since there are many opportunities to “climb the ladder.” There are many different career options. Positions range from traditional (cook, waiter, chef) to marketer, hiring manager, finance operator, business owner, and more. The waiter we were speaking to at The Magic Flute has told us he had dreams of owning his own restaurant someday, and had an inspirational background. He started out as a host for a family-owned restaurant, then worked for a while as a busboy, and worked his way up to a waiter for a popular restaurant in the city.

In the industry, eight in 10 employees agree that restaurants provide opportunities for people to succeed based on their hard work, and believe people of all backgrounds have the opportunity to own their own business. I definitely agree! In my own experience, I started out as a crew member for the ice cream parlor, and worked my way up to a cake decorator. Anyone can do anything they have a passion for in the restaurant and food service industry!

If you have the chance to visit The Magic Flute in San Francisco, make sure to ask for a garden table on your reservation. The atmosphere is great inside as well, but the outdoor area is very special for the city. I just love the romantic, relaxing ambience during both dinner and brunch.

If you happen to go there, let me know what you think!

For more information on careers in the food industry or the new competency model, visit NRAEF’s website!

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation. All opinions are 100% mine.

Program Notes

Joannes Chrisostomus Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart (He began to call himself Wolfgango Amadeo about 1770 and Wolfgang Amadè in 1777)
BORN: January 27, 1756. Salzburg, Austria
DIED: December 5, 1791. Vienna

COMPOSED: He wrote his opera Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) to a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder, mostly between April and July of his final year, although the opera’s Overture and its Act II March of the Priests were apparently completed later, since in his personal catalogue Mozart dated them September 28

WORLD PREMIERE: The world premiere occurred only two days after the work was entirely completed, at Vienna’s Freihaustheater auf der Wieden

US PREMIERE: The first full production in the US was mounted in New York on April 17, 1833; the Overture had, however, been played in New Orleans as early as January 1806

SFS PERFORMANCES: FIRST—October 1919. Alfred Hertz conducted. MOST RECENT—October 2008. Peter Oundjian conducted

INSTRUMENTATION: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings

DURATION: About 6 mins

THE BACKSTORY Mozart had finished almost all of The Magic Flute during the spring and early summer of 1791 when, in July, he was invited to compose an opera to Metastasio’s already much-used libretto La clemenza di Tito, for the festivities surrounding the coronation in Prague of Emperor Leopold II as King of Bohemia. He gladly accepted, plunging into a flurry of composition that continued until the eve of the performance, which took place on September 6. La clemenza di Tito enjoyed only a moderate reception at first, due in large part to deficiencies in the casting, but audiences gradually warmed to it, and its final performance, on September 30, was a resounding success.

Mozart had to enjoy this cliffhanger of a triumph from a distance, since he had returned to Vienna two weeks earlier to oversee final preparations for the premiere of The Magic Flute. This opera marked an important new path for the composer. It was the first stage work he had written for the commercial theater, rather than on commission from an aristocratic court. This realignment may have been born out of necessity. In recent years, Mozart’s principal link to the Italian-dominated Viennese court opera had been the librettist Lorenzo da Ponte. But in the spring of 1791, a series of scandals caught up with da Ponte, and the Emperor was compelled to dismiss him from his post as librettist to the royal court.

Mozart was badly in need of income, and the best way to earn serious money was through an imperial appointment (which was not likely at the moment) or a successful opera. He was already giving music lessons, playing piano recitals, and writing bushels of instrumental music, but none of this provided a sense of economic stability. Mozart’s wife was not in good health and was forced to spend the summer at the spa in Baden-Baden with their five-year-old son; and another child was due in the course of the summer. The composer had begun to borrow substantial sums and, although his condition was far from desperate, he was flirting with what could easily escalate into financial disaster.

At about this time, Mozart renewed a friendship with Emmanuel Schikaneder, a singer-actor-dancer-manager-playwright who had had regular contact with the Mozart family since 1780, when a company he directed appeared in Salzburg. Mozart’s father referred to Schikaneder as a “good honest fellow,” and the warm relationship must have only increased when, four years later, Schikaneder produced a revival of Mozart’s singspiel The Abduction from the Seraglio at Vienna’s Kärntnertor Theater, which he was by then managing. Several years later, Schikaneder re-emerged at the helm of the city’s thousand-seat Freihaustheater auf der Wieden, where he specialized in presenting lighthearted German-language singspiels, sometimes to his own librettos. His resident musical ensemble was impressive, including an orchestra of thirty-five players and a troupe of singing actors.

In crafting the libretto for The Magic Flute, Schikaneder drew on several collections of stories and fairytales popular in Germany and Austria at the time. His audience did not embrace the new work immediately but soon fell to its charms. Finally, Mozart had a hit on his hands. If he had not died little more than two months following the premiere, The Magic Flute would doubtless have changed his life.

Schikaneder’s libretto has perplexed commentators ever since, as it effects something of an about-face halfway through the action. The heroic Tamino is sent by the Queen of the Night to rescue her daughter, Pamina, who she says has been kidnapped by Sarastro, her “ex,” a sort of cult leader. Tamino sets out on his mission (accompanied by Papageno, a curious being who is half-man and half-bird) but soon discovers that Sarastro is actually the good guy, that he has in fact rescued Pamina from the evil Queen. In the course of his quest, Tamino falls in love with Pamina, and the two prove their steadfastness through various trials in Sarastro’s realm before the Queen and her wicked minions are banished.

THE MUSIC There does seem to be a good deal of hocus-pocus going on in The Magic Flute, and much of it, we are told, makes sense only when one understands that the work is an allegory for Masonic beliefs and rites. Schikaneder was a Freemason, and Mozart had also joined a Masonic lodge in 1784. The number three is said to hold mystical significance to Freemasons. Accordingly, the overriding key of The Magic Flute is E-flat major, with three flats in the key signature, and the Overture opens with a grand proclamation of each of the three notes of the tonic triad. Following this grave introduction, the orchestra skips off in a gleeful, fugal Allegro, only to be interrupted by another solemn proclamation of the three chords (this time in the dominant key of B-flat). The remainder of the Overture is notable for Mozart’s brilliant use of counterpoint and dynamic contrasts, building a considerably more complex piece than one might expect from what is really only a single theme.

—James M. Keller

This note originally appeared in different form in the program books of the New York Philharmonic, and is reprinted with permission. Copyright © New York Philharmonic.

MORE ABOUT THE MUSIC
Recordings: Colin Davis conducting the Dresden Staatskapelle (RCA Red Seal) | Neville Marriner conducting the Academy of St Martin in the Fields (EMI Classics Encore)

Reading: 1791: Mozart’s Last Year, by H.C. Robbins Landon (Schirmer Books) | Mozart: A Musical Biography, by Konrad Küster (Oxford University Press) | Mozart: A Cultural Biography, by Robert W. Gutman (Harcourt) | The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia, edited by Cliff Eisen and Simon P. Keeffe (Cambridge University Press) | The Mozart Compendium: A Guide to Mozart’s Life and Music, edited by H.C. Robbins Landon (Schirmer)

Review: San Francisco Opera’s visually stunning ‘Magic Flute’ too often verges on Mozart as sit-com

Alek Shrader performs as Tamino during dress rehearsal of San Francisco Opera’s production of “The Magic Flute” at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, Calif., on Sunday, June 10, 2012. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Staff)

Eight years ago, the Metropolitan Opera had a hit with director Julie Taymor’s now famous production of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” thrusting opera into the age of Cirque du Soleil. Now San Francisco Opera is hoping for something similar with its own “Flute,” a visually ravishing production designed by the ceramic artist and sculptor Jun Kaneko, which opened Wednesday at War Memorial Opera House.

There is no denying the imaginative power of this high-tech “Magic Flute,” sung in English to a new translation by David Gockley, the company’s general director. Fanciful and bursting with color — a perfect candidate for 3-D streaming to movie theaters — it is a grand confection, but with mixed results, leaning toward the cutesy and clever; Mozart as sit-com. It boasts some appealing singing, but only one marvelous performance, that of soprano Heidi Stober as the princess Pamina. Her voice is more than beautiful; she penetrates Mozart’s depths.

For much of the production’s first half, I felt as if I were meeting an old friend after a long absence: the familiar warmth and wellbeing are present, but you are aware of a change, a new vitality. That was the feeling as the orchestra — superbly led by Rory Macdonald, the young Scottish-born conductor — intoned the Overture’s shadow-and-light harmonies. Instantly, the vast backdrops on stage began filling with Kaneko’s software-generated animations: grids and rainbows of streaming lines, colorful patterns growing before our eyes, brightly mirroring the tempos, spry melodic turns and shooting-star gladness of the music.

Mozart’s opera is many things: bawdy, whimsical, magical — but delving, too, into death and darkness. This “Flute” does best with whimsy and magic. Kaneko’s design — encompassing sets, projections, costumes, lighting and many dancing animals — creates a delightful magical landscape. It’s like entering “Alice in Wonderland” through the keyhole of a Mondrian painting, with side trips to a Japanese temple. (The sinister priest Sarastro, who abducts Pamina, resembles a Lewis J. Carroll tyrant, transported to a mythic Kyoto palace).

If only Omaha-based Kaneko’s goal of integrating the production’s many elements — the visual, the musical — were uniformly achieved. It isn’t, but where it works, it’s wondrous.

Early on, we meet Tamino, the Egyptian prince whose quest leads to Pamina and true love. The role is sung by tenor Alek Shrader, whose opening aria — appealingly crooned, like a great doo-wop love ballad — is one of those weightless Mozart numbers. It is matched by Kaneko’s slo-mo abstractions, gorgeous bubbles of slow-spinning color. Likewise, there’s a tender duet between Pamino and chattering bird-catcher Papageno. Singing of life’s “sweetest harmony,” they are surrounded by warmly harmonized color-fields and patterns, embodying the song’s message.

Let’s not forget the blazing gowns of the Queen of the Night, Pamina’s mother. They are a perfect match for her legendary (and legendarily difficult) coloratura flights. Russian soprano Albina Shagimuratova executed them with brilliance, punching out mile-high notes with pipe-organ authority. Technically it was a tour de force, though without much emotive heat.

Overall, the second half of the production, as directed by Harry Silverstein, lost momentum — and oddly, Kaneko’s designs grew static. This “Flute” shirks its dark side, where Mozart and librettist Emanuel Schikaneder intimate Masonic mysteries and pose perplexing moral questions. It doesn’t help that Icelandic bass Kristinn Sigmundsson, as Sarastro, sang as if he had just eaten a bowlful of cereal mixed with gravel — or that tenor Greg Fedderly, as the priest’s henchman Monostatos, indulged in Kids-on-Broadway antics.

I wish Gockley hadn’t fed baritone Nathan Gunn (as Papageno) lines like these: “I’m more of a lover than a fighter” and “Brotherhood shmotherhood; I didn’t ask for these tests.” In the midst of his quest, Gunn — full-voiced, but blandly chipper — seemed to impersonate witless Steve Martin in “The Jerk.” Still, he and vivacious soprano Nadine Sierra, as his beloved Papagena, poured on the joy for their love-nesting “Pa-pa-pa-pa” duet.

Don’t go away before you read about the Queen’s Three Ladies: soprano Melody Moore and mezzo-sopranos Lauren McNeese and Renée Tatum, all splendid. In the cameo role of The Speaker, bass-baritone David Pittsinger was soulfully regal. Finally, consider going to this new “Flute” simply to see Stober. Every time she arrives on stage, Mozart re-emerges in all his richness. In the end, we go to the opera to hear singing; this woman can sing.

Contact Richard Scheinin at 408-920-5069.

‘The Magic Flute’

By Mozart, presented by San Francisco Opera, designed by Jun Kaneko

Through: July 8
Where: War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco

In these ceremonies, participants often light candles or bonfires to symbolize the returning light and to bring warmth and hope into their lives. Another key aspect of pagan winter solstice ceremonies is the connection to nature. Many pagans believe that the solstice is a time when the Earth is most in tune with its natural rhythms.

Therefore, ceremonies often take place outdoors, surrounded by nature. Participants may gather around a sacred tree or create an outdoor altar to honor the earth and to connect with the natural world. Rituals in pagan winter solstice ceremonies often involve chanting, drumming, or singing to invoke the energies of the season. Some traditions include the use of herbs, crystals, or other objects that are believed to hold magical properties. These objects may be used to create spells or to create an atmosphere of spiritual power. Throughout the ceremony, participants may engage in various activities to honor the solstice. These activities can include storytelling, dancing, feasting, or making crafts. Many traditions also include a time for reflection, where individuals can contemplate the past year and set intentions for the coming months. Overall, pagan winter solstice ceremonies are a time to celebrate the return of light and to connect with the cycles of nature. They provide a space for individuals to honor their spiritual beliefs and to celebrate the changing of the seasons. By participating in these rituals, pagans hope to bring balance, harmony, and renewal into their lives..

Reviews for "Embracing the Solstice Spirit: Pagan Winter Traditions for the Modern Witch"

1. Karen - 1/5 stars - I recently attended a pagan winter solstice ceremony and I was extremely disappointed. The whole event felt strange and uncomfortable. The rituals were bizarre and nonsensical, with people dancing around a fire, chanting in a language I couldn't understand. It felt more like a cult gathering than a celebratory ritual. I didn't feel any connection to nature or spirituality during the ceremony. Overall, I found it to be a strange and perplexing experience that I would not recommend.

2. John - 2/5 stars - I attended a pagan winter solstice ceremony out of curiosity, but I left feeling underwhelmed. The ceremony was disorganized and lacked structure. There were too many participants, making it difficult to fully engage in the rituals. The ceremonies themselves were repetitive and seemed unrelated to the winter solstice theme. Additionally, the event lacked any explanation or context about the meaning behind the rituals, leaving me feeling disconnected and confused. It was far from the spiritual experience I was hoping for.

3. Rachel - 2/5 stars - I had high expectations for the pagan winter solstice ceremony I attended, but unfortunately, it fell short. The atmosphere was quite dull, with a lack of energy and enthusiasm from both the participants and the organizers. The rituals felt cliché and uninspiring, more like a reenactment of what one would expect a pagan ceremony to be, rather than an authentic experience. The event lacked creativity and innovation, making it feel mundane and unmemorable. I was hoping for a meaningful and transformative experience, but instead, I left feeling disappointed and unfulfilled.

Winter Magick: Harnessing the Power of Pagan Winter Solstice Ceremonies