Cosi Fan Tutte – Salzburg M22 (Part 3: Marry Me A Little)

The ending of Cosi is ambiguous and ripe for interpretation—especially once the men have seduced both sisters. Alfonso says the best revenge is to marry the sisters. But he doesn't say which one each should marry. 

In the original, it’s assumed they should marry their original partners; but many have argued convincingly that the new pairs are better matched.

Cosi Fan Tutte – Salzburg M22 (Part 2: Fencing, the Feather, the Apple, and the Egg)

The Fencing:  In the opening scene Don Alfonso (Sir Thomas Allen) is coaching  Ferrando (Shawn Mathey) and Guglielmo (Stéphane Degout) in fencing skills. The swordplay is a clear image to associate with the conflicts in the opera. In the opening of Act 2, the sisters mirror the boys by pretending to fence with their fans.

Cosi Fan Tutte – Salzburg M22 (Part 1: Who is what, and which is who?)

I noted the other day the customer reviewer on Amazon.com who complained that this Cosi was confusing because he couldn’t tell which sister was which and which lover was which, and I thought Aha! That’s the point, isn’t it? Maybe it really doesn’t matter who ends up with whom.

In many (if not most) modern productions of Cosi, there seems to be a conscious directorial decision to create this confusion. Mozart and da Ponte have certainly set us up for this. The four young people are in love with love. They like the idea of being with someone. But it’s not clear if they are really meant to be with each other. In some cases, it’s not clear that they actually exist, other than in Alfonso’s imagination. 

The Third Post: In which the author stops numbering his posts, stops saying, “in which,” and mulls over the reality of Cosi Fan Tutte

(I was going to post about Vec Makropolous by Janacek. But I wrote way too much, and it needs major editing. This is a blog after all, not a book. That post will show up soon though.)

Cosi Fan Tutte, or as someone once noted, Cosi Fan Tutti: everyone is like that!

I have been studying Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte a lot lately. In my very young youth, I borrowed a Metropolitan Opera performance in English on LP (remember LPs?) from the library, and apparently I listened to it—a lot.  I later realized that much of the music (particularly Ah, guarda, sorella, the opening duet for the sisters) became encoded in my brain.