"Soave sia il vento" (1790)
A terzettino at the quayside: two sisters and the plotter wish a calm voyage to men who are not going anywhere
Recording: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Opera · Italian opera
Così fan tutte
26 January 1790, Burgtheater, Vienna
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart · libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte
The third and last Mozart–Da Ponte opera, and the coldest. An old cynic bets two officers that their fiancées will be unfaithful within a day; the men fake a departure for war, return disguised as Albanians, and each successfully courts the other's intended. The title — "thus do all women" — is the philosopher's verdict, sung to a motif that had already appeared in the overture. Nineteenth-century audiences found the plot so immoral that the music was routinely fitted with new stories.
How to spot them
- ▸Naples; a wager, two sisters, two officers in Albanian disguise, a fake poisoning and a fake notary
- ▸Voices: Fiordiligi (soprano), Dorabella (mezzo-soprano), Ferrando (tenor), Guglielmo (baritone), Despina (soprano), Don Alfonso (bass)
- ▸No chorus of consequence and almost no crowd: the opera is built from duets, trios and a great farewell terzettino
- ▸Clue patterns: Da Ponte, Burgtheater 1790, K. 588, subtitle 'La scuola degli amanti', the maid who impersonates a doctor with a magnet
Arias & moments — listen
"Donne mie, la fate a tanti" (1790)
Guglielmo's exasperated address to the women in the audience once his own fiancée has wavered
Recording: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart · CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
"Una donna a quindici anni" (1790)
The maid's brisk lecture on how a girl of fifteen should already know how to manage men
Recording: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
"Come scoglio immoto resta" (1790)
A vow of constancy hurled across two octaves, written to mock the soprano who created the role
"Un'aura amorosa" (1790)
Ferrando's serene tenor aria of faith in his fiancée, sung just before she proves him wrong
"Fra gli amplessi in pochi istanti" (1790)
The Act II duet in which the last and most resolute of the four finally gives way
Quick-fire facts
- •Music by Mozart (K. 588), libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, in Italian; the subtitle is 'ossia La scuola degli amanti' — 'the school for lovers'.
- •It premiered at the Burgtheater, Vienna, on 26 January 1790, and the run was cut short when Emperor Joseph II died the following month.
- •The title phrase 'Così fan tutte' is quoted from The Marriage of Figaro, where Basilio sings almost the same words in Act I.
- •Fiordiligi's 'Come scoglio' demands leaps of more than two octaves; Mozart is thought to have written them to expose the mannerisms of Adriana Ferrarese del Bene, Da Ponte's mistress, who created the role.
- •Despina disguises herself twice — as a doctor wielding a Mesmeric magnet, and as a notary.
- •Beethoven and Wagner both condemned the libretto as frivolous, and the nineteenth century usually performed the score with an entirely different plot grafted on.
- •It only entered the standard international repertory in the twentieth century, largely through the Glyndebourne productions from 1934 onwards.
- •The whole action is supposed to occupy a single day in Naples.
Drill it — 8 cards
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Sources
- Grove Music Online (Oxford Music Online) — Così fan tutte Premiere, the curtailed run, and the nineteenth-century reception
- Gustav Kobbé, rev. the Earl of Harewood and Antony Peattie — The New Kobbé's Opera Book Synopsis and numbering of the musical items