Schooling lovers

Così fan tutte (1790) was the third and last of Mozart’s radical operas with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte. All shocking in their rejection of formality and exploration of humanity. All very different musically from operas of the past.

What a plot!

Lorenzo da Ponte’s libretto reflects on the nature of love, showing a number of stereotypes regarding femininity and masculinity. The main plot focuses on the efforts of Don Alfonso to persuade his younger companions, Ferrando and Guglielmo that they should test the constancy of their fiancées. It's a cruel plot and the opera handles their success as comedy - but the music draws out the obvious underlying tragedy.

Humanity? “Così fan tutte” originally had a subtitle from Da Ponte: "The School for Lovers". And what was taught in that school? "All women are like that" is the usual translation of the title. Like what? Well, unfaithful? The plot of the opera is all about trapping young women into infidelity. And by the way, it's an original plot from Da Ponte, not sourced from an earlier literary tradition.

Perhaps for that reason, it is Da Ponte's finest libretto. Not unlike his contemporary Jane Austen, he focused on a fragment of contemporary society, and from it made sweeping observations on the human condition, with all its vulnerabilities, eccentricities and foibles. His text is rich in detail, but it is the alchemy of Mozart's music that transforms this script into something altogether more subtle, more profound and more magnificent. For instance: on Da Ponte's page, the maid Despina is a tough and embittered servant. Mozart, however, gives her vulnerability, lightens her coarseness and makes her a character of complexity and fun.

Intrigued? Take time to read this piece in the Guardian by the author of Mozart's Women, Jane Glover.

Full synopsis is here. And as always the Opera North nutshell version is terrific!

Glyndebourne has a cheat's sheet about each of the characters here, and an intriguing final line to Fiordiligi's.

At the end of the opera we assume that Fiordiligi and her sister return to their original lovers, but there is nothing either in the score or the libretto to confirm this absolutely. Recently directors have begun to explore this ambiguity and its implications for the opera’s happy ending.

What a hoot! Luigi Alva as Ferrando, Hermann Prey as Guglielmo and Walter Berry as Don Alfonso

Not surprisingly, the libretto was and still is seen as frivolous, probably immoral and certainly extremely misogynist. Great music, but.. Revised and edited versions abounded, but the popularity of the piece remained. and the men were having real fun. Nowadays, the opera is staged in its unexpurgated version.

Here's a taste of the Cosi's of yore (1970). The young overconfident males are willingly drawn into the hilarious plot to shame their loving fiancees.

Where does it take us?

How to deal with the plot? Perhaps, just listen to the music?

Here's a feminist literary interpretation. 

Or is the music Mozart's answer to the accusation that this opera expresses serious misogyny?

the music expresses the historical and moral ambiguities of Così. A simpler rejection of the accusation comes from the director of a recent Covent Garden production.

In 2016, a highly controversial production hit Edinburgh festival - extraordinary in its wide reach across prejudice and morals. The program notes quoted the director: "My intention is the same as [da Ponte’s]: that for the lightness and irresponsibility of the comedy of love you should substitute the shamelessness and cruelty of tragic passion attacked by humour." Read more here.

Also in 2016, ROH launched a new Cosi production whose director, Jan Philipp Gloger, much more gently handled the criticisms. "For me, the great quality of the Da Ponte operas (Figaro, first performed in 1786, Don Giovanni in 1787, and Così in 1790) lies in their ability to show us how we really are – mercilessly and yet affectionately at the same time. In their characters we encounter our own human weaknesses and the challenges we face. They can make us freeze in horror, or collapse in laughter. “Piu docile sono” says the Countess at the close of Figaro – “I am wiser”. She has learned something about herself and about others – and we have learned with her. Così fan Tutte even says it in its subtitle: The School for Lovers." More here.

And the music?

In just 3 operas, Da Ponte and Mozart "took a rigid, formalised musical genre full of stock characters and gave it new humanity and musical fluency." It's clearest in Cosi.

And another classic - the Met's production in 2014, with , Danielle de Niese as Despina with Isabel Leonard (L) and Susanna Phillips (R).

Here we meet an opera of human emotion almost all told in ensembles, with some of Mozart's most famous duets and - as in the previous two works, especially moving music for these tortured women. Glyndebourne's summary of the music here.As in the earlier Da Ponte operas, the play of women's upbringing and class is always there. The romantic young women and the scheming and irreverent Despina.

Our production

We're watching a production from way back in 2005 at Glyndebourne, by Nicholas Hytner. Given the plot, it's easy to be contentious with this opera - especially if it's played realistically, the comedy rolling off a misogynistic portrayal of dopey romantic women. (They didn't surely think those intimately familiar men were strangers, let alone seductive strangers?)

Nicholas Hytner’s production is traditional - with lovely settings and colourings of the world of 18th century Naples and the moods of the confused young lovers.  It's also played for laughs when the libretto directs. But there are some steely threads in the comedy.

Watch the Glydebourne trailer here.

Can it get sillier? The near deaths of the desperate 'Albanian' lovers....

Here's Tim Ashley in the Guardian: "he Romantics of the early 19th century detested Cosi Fan Tutte, deeming it for the most part trivial and obscene. Mozart's emphasis on the irrational nature of desire and its attendant dangers, however, in many respects prefigures Romantic concerns - a fact not lost on Nicholas Hytner, whose new production re-imagines the opera as a parable of the threat posed by sex to classical certainties."

Does it work? Only partly, he concludes. "Whatever its links with Romanticism, Cosi Fan Tutte is ultimately an 18th-century comedy of sexual manipulation that echoes the works of Laclos and de Sade: Hytner, rather awkwardly, tends to lose sight of the controlling importance of Alfonso and Despina." For the beautiful sets and costumes, and the music, Ivan Fischer’s conducting, the critics rolled out the praise.