As the curtain rose, the story of The Magic Flute continued. Sarastro discussed their next course of action with his advisers.
The Prince had trusted the Queen of the Night's words and rashly come to the castle to rescue the Princess. As he explored, he asked, "O eternal night, when will you end? When will I see the light?"
A voice from the void answered, "Soon, young man—or never."
The Prince then questioned that "invisible friend," asking whether the Princess was still alive.
The voice in the void told him that she was alive, and overjoyed, the Prince began to play the magic flute.
This "invisible friend," this "voice in the void," was the Sun God's Mirror. It had once belonged to the Queen of the Night's husband, who had entrusted it to Sarastro after his death.
Things were not as they appeared.
Human eyes saw not only "reality," but also "illusions."
You had to understand how you got in before you could break free.
There was an anatomy school in London's Soho. Since Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, knowledge of the human body had been vital to artists and had become an indispensable part of artistic education.
In the 1750s, the artists of St Martin's Lane Academy hired the anatomy professor William Hunter to help them understand the structure, movements, and modes of motion of the human body. By stripping skin and fat from corpses, he demonstrated the body's internal muscular system to his students.
Medicine also required a great number of corpses. Winter was approaching, and with it came the prime season of the year for grave robbing and dissecting bodies. But Hunter was unlike those grave robbers. He purchased prisoners who had just been executed at the gallows of Tyburn, had them delivered to Saint Martin's Lane