Then again, I suppose it could just be the historically informed way to stage the Act II quintet? Or is this just an argument for using women instead of boys as the Three Genii?
Seriously, though, "burlesque" was not what Emanuel Schikaneder was up to. What he was up to was fairy-tale extravaganza of a sort popular with the Viennese middle and lower classes, only with more elaborate music and more pop-philosophy than had previously been the case. Think of it as a late eighteenth-century counterpart to, say, Forbidden planet and you won't be too far off (I almost said Star wars, but that was too much a big-time commercial blockbuster; Schickaneder was a little more on the fringe of the established theaters).
I'm not sure why being a burlesque piece precludes being an opera. A lot of Prokofiev, for instance, is tongue in cheek, but nobody says Love for Three Oranges is not an opera as a result.
However, we could put aside the whole point by substituting, say, a Handel opera for The Magic Flute. Giulio Cesare and Madama Butterfly do not call for the same style of singing. Yet they are both operas.
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