# Mozart: Cosi fan tutte - Moral Dilemma?



## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

Anyone familiar with this opera will be aware of the controversy that has plagued this opera through the years. So, I was curious to know if other listeners are disturbed/unsettled by the beauty of the music contrasted with the moral implications/revelations of the libretto. Are they really at loggerheads?

Personally, I regards it as light entertainment and rather enjoy the pangs on conscience generated in the characters.

But what about you? Does it the apparent contradiction of music Vs plot make you uncomfortable? Really?


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I've always found the plot of _Cosi_ quite pedestrian myself - essentially it's two young rucks having a wager with the pub bore, isn't it? The premise is both thin and the content convoluted even for 18th century standards, and, with the possible exception of Despina, the characters seem rather one-dimensional which makes me lack empathy for any of them. I for one cannot discern anything like the level of depth or multifacetedness (_sic._) which enriched _Don Giovanni_ and _Die Zauberflöte_. The music more than redeems the work but the plot is definitely an Achilles' heel in comparison and is by far my least favourite amongst Mozart's operatic masterworks.

That said, its limitations might make it ideal for _regietheater_ - the wager scene could be set in a garish modern-day sports bar and the action featuring the two girls could largely take place in an uptown nail salon (Despina could be the beautician).


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Discounting the framing with the wager, the main point of the opera seems to me to be the vulnerability of love/relationships and the general fickleness of both men and women in these regards.
Which is quite modern and something much closer to the real life of most of us than having to get a spouse out of prison or besieging Jerusalem or reforging a magic sword or whatever. 

The details of the 18th century framing are not that realistic but I don't think that this hurts the main point. (A somewhat similar Ancien regime erotic wager, namely Laclos' "Liaisons dangereuses" was made into several very successful movies in the last decades.)


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I've always found the plot a bit hard to take. Quite aside from the moral dilemma and evident misogyny, I find it very hard to believe that the two girls would not have recognised their two lovers however elaborate the disguise.

On the other hand, it does have some sublime music, so I usually try to ignore the plot and listen instead to the emotions the unlikely circumstances provoke. I think it contains some of Mozart's most emotionally apposite music. I wouldn't say the characters were one-dimensional, particularly the women, and especially Fiordiligi, well at least as Schwarzkopf portrays her in Böhm's famous EMI recording. Imperious in _Come scoglio_, she is inwardly troubled in _Per pieta_, which in turn sets us up for her eventual capitulation in _Fra gli amplessi_, which she and Kraus make into something quite erotic. So, whereas I find the plot itself unconvincing, I think the characters are quite well drawn within their eighteenth century limitations.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

That implausible disguises work is a trope of comedy and drama in general. Do we have the same problems with all the cross-dressed men/women in Shakespeare? With Leporello and Giovanni swapping cloaks and hats for a disguise? With Leonore passing as Fidelio, Cherubino as his own female cousin or whatever?

The point to me seems rather that humans are capable to want to (be) seduce(d) and stay faithful almost at the same time etc. The unrealistic framing is secondary. Like the magic ring, sword etc. are symbols ore even merely props in a parable about power in Wagner's Ring, so here the wager and disguise are an unrealistic framing for wisdom about the thrills and frailties of human erotic/romantic relationships.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> That implausible disguises work is a trope of comedy and drama in general. Do we have the same problems with all the cross-dressed men/women in Shakespeare? With Leporello and Giovanni swapping cloaks and hats for a disguise? With Leonore passing as Fidelio, Cherubino as his own female cousin or whatever?


True enough. I think maybe it's the intimate nature of their relationship that bothers me. One assumes that the two couples, even back in the eighteenth century, would have been sufficiently acquainted with each other, to be able to recoginise their other halves at some point. When Leporello and Giovanni swap disguises it is dark and the subterfuge is soon discovered anyway. As for Leonore being disguised as Fidelio, I confess that some sopranos require a greater degree of willing suspension of disbelief than others. :devil:



Kreisler jr said:


> The point to me seems rather that humans are capable to want to (be) seduce(d) and stay faithful almost at the same time etc. The unrealistic framing is secondary. Like the magic ring, sword etc. are symbols ore even merely props in a parable about power in Wagner's Ring, so here the wager and disguise are an unrealistic framing for wisdom about the thrills and frailties of human erotic/romantic relationships.


You make a good point, and I suppose the plot is no more ridiculous than many other operatic plots. (Ernani killing himself on his wedding day to satisfy a pledge he made to Silva, who hardly acts honourably himself?). But, as I say, I don't worry too much about the plot itself. It is enough for me that it provokes some of Mozart's most heartfelt music.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

KRoad said:


> Anyone familiar with this opera will be aware of the controversy that has plagued this opera through the years. So, I was curious to know if other listeners are disturbed/unsettled by the beauty of the music contrasted with the moral implications/revelations of the libretto. Are they really at loggerheads?
> 
> Personally, I regards it as light entertainment and rather enjoy the pangs on conscience generated in the characters.
> 
> But what about you? Does it the apparent contradiction of music Vs plot make you uncomfortable? Really?


The thought never crossed my mind to take the characters/plot seriously.


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

SanAntone said:


> The thought never crossed my mind to take the characters/plot seriously.


I agree, me neither. However, learned sources on opera seem to feel that the tension set up by, on the one hand, the beauty of the music and on the other, the immoral nature of the libretto, can leave an audience with an uncomfortable/ambiguous feeling. This was certainly not my experience, hence this post to enquire whether my own libertine response was an exception to the rule.

It seems not so far...

Perhaps a "born again" might like to step in at this juncture for a touch of the polemics?


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

I love _Cosi_ very much. Plot in opera rarely passes the verisimilitude test, who cares? The music and the singing are paramount and, with a good cast, it can send me to heaven!


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## JTS (Sep 26, 2021)

The plot of Cosi is quite implausible but no more so than a lot of operas. Yes it is morally questionable but of course the libretto was written by a man who once ran a brothel and a friend of Casanova.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

But he wrote also the libretti for Figaro and Don Giovanni, none of them usually gets so much flak despite similar (conventional) implausibilities...


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

JTS said:


> The plot of Cosi is quite implausible but no more so than a lot of operas. Yes it is morally questionable but of course the libretto was written by a man who once ran a brothel and a friend of Casanova.


Tarred by the same brush?


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

KRoad said:


> I agree, me neither. However, *learned sources on opera seem to feel *that the tension set up by, on the one hand, the beauty of the music and on the other, the immoral nature of the libretto, can leave an audience with an uncomfortable/ambiguous feeling. This was certainly not my experience, hence this post to enquire whether my own libertine response was an exception to the rule.
> 
> It seems not so far...
> 
> Perhaps a "born again" might like to step in at this juncture for a touch of the polemics?


I simply don't care about those "issues," and question the premise upon which they are based. I regularly watch/listen to opera and am only interested in the quality of the performance and singing. One must not take it too seriously.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

MAS said:


> I love _Cosi_ very much. Plot in opera rarely passes the verisimilitude test, who cares? The music and the singing are paramount and, with a good cast, it can send me to heaven!


Yes -- except this bit



MAS said:


> it can send me to heaven!


because I am very much brought down to earth with a bump by nearly all the music after the interval. I think it's really disappointing and the next time I see it I'm resolved not to go back in -- even though I'll miss some of the wonderful ensemble singing in the last half hour.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

KRoad said:


> I agree, me neither. However, learned sources on opera seem to feel that the tension set up by, on the one hand, the beauty of the music and on the other, the immoral nature of the libretto, can leave an audience with an uncomfortable/ambiguous feeling. This was certainly not my experience, hence this post to enquire whether my own libertine response was an exception to the rule.
> 
> It seems not so far...
> 
> Perhaps a "born again" might like to step in at this juncture for a touch of the polemics?


 The devil has all the best tunes.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

KRoad said:


> Anyone familiar with this opera will be aware of the controversy that has plagued this opera through the years. So, I was curious to know if other listeners are disturbed/unsettled by the beauty of the music contrasted with the moral implications/revelations of the libretto. Are they really at loggerheads?
> 
> Personally, I regards it as light entertainment and rather enjoy the pangs on conscience generated in the characters.
> 
> But what about you? Does it the apparent contradiction of music Vs plot make you uncomfortable? Really?


The thing that unsettles me most in the opera is Don Alfonso's clear vision, which leads him to such cynicism about human nature.


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## KevinJS (Sep 24, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> The devil has all the best tunes.


He keeps them, too. Just ask Tartini.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Any work of art with a "moral" is bound to provoke questions about who is trying to tell us, or sell us, what. With action as farcical as _Cosi'_s, and with so much fine music dressing it up (a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down in the most delightful way), the sexism question seems more for the sociologist than for the average operagoer. That said, I would approve of a production that made every effort to undercut the stated idea. Would there be a way to have the women discover the plot against them early and proceed to toy with the men, revealing that "all men are jerks"? Of course that theme has been popular since _Lysistrata_. It's Mother who really knows best.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> Any work of art with a "moral" is bound to provoke questions about who is trying to tell us, or sell us, what. With action as farcical as _Cosi'_s, and with so much fine music dressing it up (a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down in the most delightful way), the sexism question seems more for the sociologist than for the average operagoer. That said, I would approve of a production that made every effort to undercut the stated idea. Would there be a way to have the women discover the plot against them early and proceed to toy with the men, revealing that "all men are jerks"? Of course that theme has been popular since _Lysistrata_. It's Mother who really knows best.


It would be an interesting directorial twist in a spoken drama. I'm thinking of Shakespeare's _As You Like It_, where, depending on the production, at some point young Orlando may figure out that the boy playacting as his beloved Rosalind actually *is* Rosalind in disguise.

But I suspect such tinkering would be more problematic in _Cosi_, if only because Mozart's music provides such compelling emotional arcs. It's hard to imagine the characters only *pretending* to experience those feelings.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

amfortas said:


> It would be an interesting directorial twist in a spoken drama. I'm thinking of Shakespeare's _As You Like It_, where, depending on the production, at some point young Orlando may figure out that the boy playacting as his beloved Rosalind actually *is* Rosalind in disguise.
> 
> But I suspect such tinkering would be more problematic in _Cosi_, if only because Mozart's music provides such compelling emotional arcs. It's hard to imagine the characters only *pretending* to experience those feelings.


You're probably right. I don't know the libretto well enough to say at what point the girls might catch on, but I don't have the same reservations about tampering with the text, or even the order of the music, as I do about most later operas. It's a timelessly absurd story that adapts quite well to updatings (it looks great on Coney Island, for instance), and in the 18th century it wasn't unusual to mess around with plays and operas for different productions. I don't think this cream puff would suffer one bit from an extra layer of irony.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Any work of art with a "moral" is bound to provoke questions about who is trying to tell us, or sell us, what. With action as farcical as _Cosi'_s, and with so much fine music dressing it up (a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down in the most delightful way), the sexism question seems more for the sociologist than for the average operagoer. That said, I would approve of a production that made every effort to undercut the stated idea. Would there be a way to have the women discover the plot against them early and proceed to toy with the men, revealing that "all men are jerks"? Of course that theme has been popular since _Lysistrata_. It's Mother who really knows best.


I'm sure I remember reading about a production that did just this. I don't know how it played out, but the girls discovered the subterfuge early on and decided to play along.


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## JTS (Sep 26, 2021)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I'm sure I remember reading about a production that did just this. I don't know how it played out, but the girls discovered the subterfuge early on and decided to play along.


This has been done and completely goes against all the dynamics of the carefully constructed opera. Of course updating it doesn't go very well either. We have to go back to an age where women were far more vulnerable and less educated than they are now. We are talking about women who are desperate to get married (cf 'Pride and Prejudice') because that was their only way they could make good in society. Modern women with mobile phones would not play along with this nonsense. Cosi is of course nonsense but then most opera is pretty questionable to a rational mind. Just enjoy it for what it is. Probably one reason why it didn't go down too well with Mozart's audience was because it rather hit at their own hypocritical sense of morality. 'So do they all' found too many peopke out - among the men especially!


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

As I wrote above, the setup of "Liaisons dangereuses" (a novel from 1782) is not totally dissimilar to Cosi fan tutte, although a bit more realistic. This was made into two successful historical movies in the late 1980s (the later less succesful one is called "Valmont") and also transported to late 1990s teenagers as "Cruel Intentions"; there are probably a few other movies with similar dangerous erotic wagers, it's not really my area  and the only movie of them I have seen is the one with Pfeiffer, Malkovich, Thurman from 1988.
So I cannot agree that the core ideas don't travel so well to our times.


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## Music Snob (Nov 14, 2018)

The music from Cosi not only helped me through some of the most difficult times of my life (involving a break up), but also illuminated my own elementary understanding of music composition in such a way that the art of composing was much more understandable.

With that being said... 

Anyone who has ever been in a relationship can attest that people behave irrationally- myself included. Therefore when our emotions get the best of us it is not surprising to find ourselves acting completely out of sorts. All the more so when we are young. To make it through and be able to laugh about such behavior later in life is a feat that can be quite difficult. So Cosi is a comedy first and foremost which the great Mozart graced with some of his most sublime music. We get the best of both the comedic and the serious. Not unlike those relationships which brings out the best and the worst in us. Perhaps there is no better way to illustrate such experiences than with a completely non-sensical drama which has an undercurrent of emotion which many of can relate to at one point or another. So Cosi, as with many a great work of Art, is a mirror to understanding ourselves in ways that mere words cannot attain. I would’ve loved to discuss and possibly debate Wagner on this very important work of Art... 


It should be noted that during the season which Cosi premiered there would’ve been a lot of soldiers in attendance who would’ve found much humor in this opera. I recommend Bruce Brown’s book on Cosi for anyone interested in this work of Art where the comedy blurs with the serious to almost make them indiscernible from each other.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Music Snob said:


> The music from Cosi not only helped me through some of the most difficult times of my life (involving a break up),


The music seems to have bewitched Dorabella and Fiordiligi too. It wouldn't work on me, though. If I ever catch you claiming to be an Albanian and crooning about un'aura amorosa, you can pack your suitcase.


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## Music Snob (Nov 14, 2018)

The sound of my voice singing is enough to make grown men cry- and not in a good way.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

"the story is said to have been based on a real - life incident which was the talk of Vienna at the time of its occurrence."
The New Kobbé's Complete Opera Book / P. 116 / Gustav Kobbe, ‎Gustav Kobbé, ‎Harewood · 1976


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> "the story is said to have been based on a real - life incident which was the talk of Vienna at the time of its occurrence."
> The New Kobbé's Complete Opera Book / P. 116 / Gustav Kobbe, ‎Gustav Kobbé, ‎Harewood · 1976


I have the Kobbé and looked this up, but no more is said about the supposed "real-life" incident. It certainly makes you wonder how real some people's lives are.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

hammeredklavier said:


> "the story is said to have been based on a real - life incident which was the talk of Vienna at the time of its occurrence."
> The New Kobbé's Complete Opera Book / P. 116 / Gustav Kobbe, ‎Gustav Kobbé, ‎Harewood · 1976


Including that stuff about mesmerism, magnetism?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

JTS said:


> . Modern women with mobile phones


Priceless.

Xbox a bbbbbmix aa


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> I have the Kobbé and looked this up, but no more is said about the supposed "real-life" incident. It certainly makes you wonder how real some people's lives are.


"Mesmerizing Adultery: "Così fan tutte" and the Kornman Scandal
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3878310
A notorious adultery scandal involving Guillaume Kornman (a co-founder and sponsor of the French mesmeric society) and Beaumarchais, who defended Kornman's unfaithful wife, should be considered one of the main sources of inspiration for Così fan tutte. A pamphlet war between the two broke out in 1787, when Salieri was living with Beaumarchais in Paris. Significantly, the earliest sources of the opera - Salieri's first unfinished setting of La scola degli amanti, Da Ponte's original libretto, and Mozart's autograph - all spell the name of Guglieimo as 'Guilelmo.' A study of this real-life Parisian drama helps to clarify several dramatic and musical elements of the opera, including the use of mesmeric references, which is more pervasive than previously recognized. In this new light, the opera appears to offer a political response to the radical ideas on the regulation of sexual and social matters disseminated by Kornman's mesmeric circle."

Guillaume Kornmann (born 1741, Strasbourg) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillaume_Kornmann


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

> Originally Posted by *Tsaraslondon*:
> I'm sure I remember reading about a production that did just this. I don't know how it played out, but the girls discovered the subterfuge early on and decided to play along.





JTS said:


> This has been done and completely goes against all the dynamics of the carefully constructed opera. Of course updating it doesn't go very well either.


Of all major operas, _Cosi_ may best accommodate updating - or pre-dating, or being set in just about any time or locale where there are men and women and military service (even Albania being optional). As you say, "Cosi is of course nonsense, but then most opera is pretty questionable to a rational mind." I disagree with the latter part of that; few opera plots strain credulity as thoroughly as _Cosi_'s, and given its rating (10+) on the nonsense scale I see no harm in having some fun with a production's setting and style. It could provide a needed creative outlet for directors who would otherwise be engaged in ruining the operas of Wagner and Verdi.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

The Kornmann affair looks rather different than a spouse swapping wager but does provide some context about a society where a husband could "allow" his wife to take a lover as long as everything happened discreetly (and he probably would not have thought twice taking a lover himself) but then regret it and scandal would follow.
Truth can be stranger than fiction; the plot of Fidelio was supposedly also based on real events in postrevolutionary France. 

But I think that at least in Cosi to focus on verisimilitude is missing the point as the symmetric setup etc. is so obviously artificial.


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## JTS (Sep 26, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> Including that stuff about mesmerism, magnetism?


It was of course believed that magnetism could cure things. When you look through the quack remedies that were about this is just one of them.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Kreisler jr said:


> Truth can be stranger than fiction; the plot of Fidelio was supposedly also based on real events in postrevolutionary France.


"critics have noted the similarity in plot with Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidelio


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