Cosi Fan Tutte

Posted by Sari

I found an USB –drive I had lost almost a year ago, and this was on it. So I thought better late than ever, especially as Jukka is still "collecting his thoughts"...

“Cosi fan tutte le belle” sings the smarmy music teacher Don Basilio already in Figaro. Later Da Ponte and Mozart turned this idea of the universal infidelity of women to a whole opera. Cosi is probably the least loved of the Mozart operas in standard repertoire. It’s plot is uncomfortably cynical and production notes end up trying to explain what Mozart and Da Ponte really meant with much greater length than at their other collaborations. And they tend to come to much more varied conclusions, too. Nobody even agrees how the opera ends. Productions have ended with original pairings, the new pairings, and even the sisters going off together in sapphian huff and leaving the men to their own devices.

Lately it has become common to brush aside the misogynism of the opera by saying pointing out that as the men men behave no better than the women, the opera is more misantrophic than misogynist. That cynical Don Alfonso, an enlightement “scientist”, is experimenting on human feelings, both men’s and women’s, and it is his misanthropic view of human nature that triumphs over the overly romantic ideals of the young people in the end.

Still, it must be pointed out that the opera is Cosi Fan Tutte. I don’t think Da Ponte put that “e” in there without thinking it through. Fiordiligi and Dorabella are undoubtably manipulated and duped but it is still they who decide in 24 hours of parting dump their old lovers for the “Albanian” beaus. Furthermore, when the boys have succeeded in their goals and Don Alfonso triumphantly presses them in the unison rendition of the name of the opera, he who has been proven right, strips the womankind responsibility which comes with free will:

Tutti accusan le donne, ed io le scuso
Se mille volte al dì cangiano amore;
Altri un vizio lo chiama ed altri un uso,
Ed a me par necessità del core.
L'amante che si trova alfin deluso
Non condanni l'altrui, ma il proprio errore;
Già che giovani, vecchie, e belle e brutte,
Ripetete con me: "Così fan tutte!"

It is just their nature to be inconstant and flirty, the poor dears, you just have to take them as they come. Bah.

Musically, Cosi has some spellbinding Mozart moments, especially “soave, si il vento”  which has one of Mozart’s most beautiful melodies and is accompanied with almost impressionistic strings creating the feel light breeze and gentle seas. As a whole however, it has never grabbed me like Figaro or even Don. It is supposed to be the most tightly structured of Mozart’s operas, but I lack the the necessary know-how to appreciate it.

So not surprisingly I have not been feeling too bad about never seeing Cosi live. But when the Finnish National Opera finally noticed that it is better to have butts on the seats, and started offering discount ticets to students on the day, I decided to take up the offer and see a revival of Cosi from 1999. The production was quite interesting. Director had set the action in a sort of modernish time: a hotel in Naples which looked like it was from 1930’s with modern touches mixing the palette up so that it felt like the sisters and their suitors were harking back to a nostalgic past, maybe mirroring their elevated ideas about love. Sets and costuming was airy and clear – I especially liked the transformation of moustachioed Albanians into Miami Vice wannabees. This particular performance had the air of competence rather than inspiration; there wre no glaring mistakes, but that certain something was perhaps lacking.

And the ending? The Director thinks Fiordiligi and Ferrando will end up together, but that Gulielmo and Dorabella will go their separate ways. Which I don’t have a problem with, it is as good an interpretation as any. The “middle-roles” mixing buffa and dramma are not serious about their fling where as the hero and heroine are. What does make me cringe a bit is the way Dorabella is left alone on the stage during the last sextett. Giulielmo abandons her to join Fiordiligi and Ferrando on the other side of the stage. The paranoid feminist in me interprets the ending as the sexually active and adventurous woman being shunned by the others. If they would have had Giulielmo standing also alone, that would have been different.

This production did not manage to change my mind about Cosi. I still think it is too long, too cold and I just can’t manage to twist the libretto into such a shape that it would not make me grind my theeth.

Comments

[Manu]

Interesting opera news: John Adams' Doctor Atomic will be one of the ten Metropolitan operas showing live in Finnkino theaters in 2008-09. The date is 8th November 2008, Maxim 1, 8pm. Tickets cost 29 euros.