Class 2: Mozart's Devious Humanity

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2. Mozart's Devious Humanity. Lorenzo Da Ponte's libretto for Così fan Tutte ("all women do it") is a locker-room joke running on the mechanics of a finely-tuned machine. It is neat as a mathematical proposition, and perfectly symmetrical: two sisters manipulated to fall in love with the other's fiancé and then return to their original partners. Nothing could be further from a demonstration of reality in opera—were it not for Mozart's music, which refuses to treat the characters like pawns on a chessboard. But given that music, the opera becomes one of the most human, emotionally complex—and real—works in the entire canon.

We shall primarily watch excerpts from Nicholas Hytner's 2006 staging at Glyndebourne, first showing how the opera begins in farce, then focusing on how it gradually shifts to something altogether darker. At various times, we will bring in other productions for comparison, for once you treat the characters as real people, the range of options expands greatly. This is especially so in the final moments of the score, because modern sensibilities can no longer so easily accept Da Ponte's traditional happy ending. rb.

The script, videos, and images will be posted immediately after class.

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VIDEO LINKS

I prepared this list originally for a longer class on the opera that was less focused than this one and included many scenes I did not have time to show; I have left them in, however, because they are all worth watching. Most of my clips were taken from the 2006 production by Nicholas Hytner at Glyndebourne. This is available on DVD for about $23 new or $10 used. YouTube has only a bunch of short clips, though few of them come from scenes we watched in class; I have put all these in a section together.

There are actually many full productions of the opera on YouTube. I list only those with titles in English, with brief notes on each, but there are a lot more out there. Even though we only have the first act, I include the one from Drottningholm, Sweden, because it is a chamber production in the kind of theater Mozart himself would have known.

The section after that consists of a bunch of trailers, which between them give a wonderful sense of how different directors have attempted to relate the opera to reality. Next come some different ways of ending the opera (now including an earlier production by Sven-Eric Bechtolf that is more radical than anything else I showed), and some interesting alternative versions of key scenes, whether or not we watched them in class. Two of these come from Phelim McDermott's current production for the Metropolitan Opera, set in Coney Island, and featuring a troupe of circus artistes. Good though the perfomances are, I find it grossly over-produced, lacking the essential trust in the music to carry the story on its own. Also over-produced, but a lot more interestingly so, is the 2018 production by Christophe Honoré at Aix-en-Provence. He sets the opera in some French Foreign Legion post in Africa, peopled with many more performers than the central six. so that the atmosphere is already sexually and racially charged from the start. The men return in blackface, and Guglielmo's seduction of Dorabella is not merely a matter of showing that she is attracted to him, but basically to any man, regardless of race. I did not show it because it is potentially offensive on so many fronts—but by the same token, it is the most original approach to the opera that I know. German titles only, unfortunately.

MAIN PRODUCTION SHOWN IN CLASS
	Glyndebourne 2006	Sisters' opening duet, second half (production by Nicholas Hytner) Farewell quintet Prayer trio Guglielmo's first aria Doctor scene Sisters' Act II duet (in which they chose partners) Fiordiligi's Act II aria (Miah Persson, complete) Fiordiligi/Ferrando duet
PRODUCTIONS WITH ENGLISH TITLES
	Drottningholm 1984	Act I only (chamber production in C18 theater)
	Paris 1992	Complete (clean period production, good acting)
	Salzburg 2006	Act I (almost abstract sets) Act II (continuation of the above)
	Zurich 2009	Complete (clean period production)
	Salzburg 2009	Complete (modern-dress production)
OTHER RELEVANT CLIPS
	Trailers	Glyndebourne 2006 (Nicholas Hytner production shown in class) Salzburg 2014 (Sven-Eric Bechtolf) Royal Opera House 2016 (Jan Philip Gloger) Seattle 2018 (revival of Jonathan Miller production) Metropolitan Opera 2018 (Phelim McDermott; see note above) Salzburg 2021 (Christoph Loy) Irish National Opera 2023 Vienna Volksoper 2024 (Maurice Lenhard; tennis-match trailer) Paris 2024 (semi-choreographed production)
	Overture	Metropolitan Opera (see note above)
	Sisters' opening duet	Salzburg 2009 (Miah Persson, Isobel Leonard) Aix-en-Provence 2018 (see note above; German titles)
	Prayer trio	Royal Opera House (Gloger production, set in a train station!) Aix-en-Provence 2018 (entire scene; see note above)
	Sextet	Aix-en-Provence 2018 (extended scene; see note above)
	Doctor scene	Metropolitan Opera 2018 (see note above)
	Guglielmo/Dorabella duet	Paris 1992 (strange production, great acting!) Royal Opera House 2016 (as shown in class) Aix-en-Provence 2018 (see note above; German titles) Salzburg 2021 (an unusual ending!)
	Ferrando/Fiordiligi duet	Paris 1992
	Ending of the opera	Compilation shown in class


IMAGES
The thumbnails below cover the slides shown in class, though there may be a few small discrepancies. Click the thumbnail to see a larger image. Click on the right or left of the larger picture to go forward or back, or outside it to close.