The Italian translation of Die Zauberflöte for the Dresden performance of 1794 was made by Caterino Mazzolà, a poet who, a few years earlier, had already undertaken to revise the libretto of Metastasio's Clemenza di Tito for Mozart. The reasons for this translation were largely political. The association of Italian melodramma and absolutism required the removal from the German libretto of masonic symbols, a censuring of every ardent humanitarian desire and the replacing of the story in a moralizing setting. The displacement of arias from one act to another, as well as the many musical variants (all of these being replacements to simplify the vocal difficulties in Mozart's music) reflect contemporary practice although they greatly modified the original dramatic effect.