Così fan tutte

O P E R A N O T E S | L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O

February 17 - March 16, 2018

Both Cynical and Heartfelt: The Enigma of

Così fan tutte

By Martha C. Nussbaum

osì fan tutte

, “Thus Do All Women”

(subtitled “The School for Lovers”),

has now finally entered the Mozart

canon. First performed on January 26, 1790,

at the Burgtheater in Vienna, it was initially

well received, but had only five performances

during Mozart’s lifetime, on account of the

death of the emperor Joseph II only a month

later, and the ensuing mourning period.

(Mozart died on December 5, 1791.) During

the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

it endured a long eclipse, being considered

offensive and immoral. Sometimes, loving the

music, people attempted to provide it with a

totally different libretto: in one version, the

text was that of Shakespeare’s

Love’s Labours

Lost

in French! By now, however, the opera

in its original form has won its way into the

repertory, and is always in the top twenty of

most-performed operas worldwide, though

ranking slightly below three other Mozart

operas:

The Magic Flute, The Marriage of

Figaro,

and

Don Giovanni.

The beauty of its

music has won the hearts of audiences.

Producers, critics, and audiences,

however, continue to find

Così

a deeply

problematic work. The great critic Joseph

Kerman goes so far as to write, “Even the

most devout Mozartian will have to admit that

there is something unsatisfactory about

Così

”

– which he calls “Mozart’s most problematic

work.” What is the problem? In essence,

it is a felt dissonance between the heartless

spirit of Lorenzo Da Ponte’s libretto and

the remarkable emotional expressivity of

the music, especially in the second act. This

dissonance is then rendered more problematic

still by the neat cookie-cutter ending in which

everything snaps back to the way it was before

Act Two.

Da Ponte’s libretto is polished, well-

constructed, witty, and cynical. Don Alfonso,

the opera’s resident philosopher/observer/

cynic, who creates the plan to test the fidelity

of the young women, opines that emotions

are short-lived and fickle, but the libretto

ultimately goes yet further, suggesting that

they are altogether unreal and factitious. Much

The principals of Lyric’s previous presentation of John Cox’s production, 2006/07 season. Clockwise from top left: Erin Wall (Fiordiligi),

Nathan Gunn (Guglielmo), Lauren McNeese (Dorabella), Sir Thomas Allen (Don Alfonso), Nuccia Focile (Despina), and Eric Cutler (Ferrando).

ALL PHOTOS BY DAN REST