O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn
aria from The Magic Flute
"O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn" ("Oh, don't tremble, my dear son") is the first aria performed by the Queen of the Night (a famous coloratura soprano role) in Mozart's singspiel The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte). It is not as well known as the Queen's second aria, "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen", though no less demanding; the aria requires a soprano coloratura with extremely high tessitura and great vocal flexibility.
Significance
The role of Queen of the Night demands a range that until Mozart's time was almost never called for, and this opened the door for later composers to call for specific kind of singers (lyric, dramatic, coloratura, etc.), rather than just "soprano", "tenor" etc.
The part, in whole, includes two arias, O zittre nicht and Der Hölle Rache. The first calls for a rather lyric and flexible voice while the second requires a dramatic and powerful voice. Originally, the part was written for Josepha Hofer, the composer's sister-in-law, whose voice possessed both of these qualities. Most modern performers are specialists in either lyric or dramatic style. This, along with the difficulty of the two arias, makes the role of the Queen of the Night one of the most demanding in operatic repertoire.
Context in the opera
In the preceding scene, Prince Tamino was shown a portrait of the Queen's daughter Pamina and fell instantly in love with her, singing of his feelings in the aria "Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön". The Queen then makes a dramatic entrance, preceded by the Three Ladies calling to Tamino "Sie kommt!
The public source identifies “O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn” as aria from The Magic Flute. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around zittre, nicht and mein.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3347827. VIAF identifies the subject as 181445685. The Library of Congress control number is n2014041467. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.