A Valid Observation, but a bit of a stretch in argumentation (Simon)

I'd apologize for doing this late, but I bet you're reading this Thursday morning, so I don't feel too bad.

Rosengard believes that the long-lasting popularity of The Magic Flute was caused primarily by its accessibility across a wide range of audience members; more specifically, across social classes. It accomplishes this not by including pleasurable material for each class, but rather by telling the audience that class doesn't actually matter. It is unlikely that Mozart, at his writing desk, was thinking to himself, "Aha, I will write an opera that appeals to as many classes as possible and tells them that class doesn't actually matter!" But it is entirely feasible that the pervasiveness of the Enlightenment was great enough to insert social equity into every artists' consciousness, and Mozart was simply the soul expressive enough to get the point out.

She presents Papageno, Tamino, and the Queen as three entities on the gradient of social independence; Papageno natural but chaotic, the Queen controlled but deceptive, and Tamino the best of both. Her argument is based not off the characters' dialogue, but their arias, and the form of the music within, and this strategy makes debating her points a bit difficult. After all, who is to say that "a sudden, convulsive, and stylized conventional rush up and down the strings," (mm. 31-35) does not indicate base deception and melodrama from the Queen? Rosengard's talking points are similarly subjective across the board.

However, the conclusion concerning the Queen, in particular, seems a bit hazy. The writer states that by "reasserting the privileges of caste, the Queen loses all connection to the rest of humanity['s]... natural aspect." Yes, the Queen separates herself from nature, but she does this by reasserting the privileges of caste and class. She entreats Tamino for help as a Queen, as nobility, and she is spoken of as a Queen long before she first appears on stage.

On the other hand, the points for Papageno and Tamino are a bit more solid, and there is no denying that class indifference is a prevalent idea in the opera. So my questions are:

Is the distribution of the three characters across a gradient of social equity an apt one?

Did Mozart intend for his opera to be as laden with Enlightenment ideals as it is? For that matter, is it?

Do the themes we have discussed still "pop out" if we choose to only look at the text and dialogue of the characters, ignoring the more subjective musical analysis?