Was Mozart's Magic Flute that rarest of birds: a *successful* revisionist subversion of audience expectations

I've often said that Mozart's opera The Magic Flute is perhaps my favourite piece of music, and an opus I regard as one of the greatest achievements of Man. So in my mind there is no doubt that - weird hybrid that it is - Flute is a supremely successful work of art. 

But when you know a work well, it is easy to forget first impressions and to neglect the obvious - and there is no doubt that on first viewing The Magic Flute sets-up character expectations in its early parts, that are inverted by the story's later development. 

What I had not noticed before is that these expectations are reinforced by the voice types - which tend to support the false expectations created by the story. 

There is a broad correlation across most operas between the altitude of the voice and positive morality; such that the virtuous, heroes and heroines, are usually the highest males and female voices - tenor and soprano; while the wicked characters tend to have the deepest voices - bass and contralto. 

In the Magic Flute, as it begins, we have the usual heroic tenor, who is enlisted by the Queen of the Night - a very high soprano - to rescue her kidnapped daughter from the demonic Sarastro - who is a deep bass. 

At first; the pitch of the voices tends to confirm our expectation of who is a goodie and who a baddie. 

But later discoveries and developments invert our expectations: the Queen of the Night turns-out to be cruel, dishonest, and power-crazed; while Sarastro is noble and virtuous. 

In terms of vocal range, and unexpectedly: highest is most evil, and lowest is goodest. 

This is the kind of subversion of audience expectations that has nowadays, and for the past few decades, become a tedious cliché of movies and TV shows. 

Stereotypes are inverted more often than confirmed. Revisionism is so common that people have forgotten what is being revised. 

Way back in 1791, Mozart had already done it - but, unlike his modern imitators: Mozart Made It Work.