Late Baroque sociability, the culture of sensibility and the queen of the night's rage in Mozart's The magic flute

Abstract

Apart from prudence and courage, the human quality which was valued the most in the late Baroque period was the ability to make conversation. Among all the misfortunes a man could be a prey to, few were looked upon with such contempt as the condition of having nothing to say for oneself, of having no opinions to expound and defend. There were few people whose company was less likely to be sought after than the anodyne man, the one in whom no topic of contemporary controversy was able to rouse any passion. And despite the fervour which would often characterize eighteenth-century discussions among men, the drinks which came to be favoured as accompaniments for these discussions seemed to be calculated to achieve the opposite effect – one of composed calm. Tea, coffee and hot chocolate, the new, fashionable hot drinks of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in fact, seemed to be perfectly geared to foster the newfound late Baroque love for intellectual conversation among friends. This is because they were at once pleasing to the palate and conducive to serenity of demeanour and alertness of mind.