Description
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)Così fan tutte (Highlights)In 1781 Mozart won independence from the ties that had bound him to his native Salzburg. After a childhood during which he had astonished Europe by his feats of musicianship, there had been a less satisfactory period of adolescence in which his gifts were the greater but his chances to display them the less. An attempt to seek an honourable position in Mannheim or in Paris in 1777 and 1778 led to nothing, but the successful reception of his opera Idomeneo in Munich in January 1781 encouraged him in his quarrel with his patron, the Archbishop of Salzburg, during the course of a visit to Vienna immediately afterwards. For the last ten years of his life Mozart lacked the security of patronage and was without the careful advice of his father, Leopold Mozart, who remained as Vice-Kapellmeister in Salzburg, unable any longer to guide and plan his son's career. An imprudent marriage did nothing to improve his position, but Vienna brought one very great advantage. At last it was possible to write directly for the theatre. Mozart's first Vienna opera during this period was the German Singspiel Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio), in 1782. This was followed in 1786 by the first of his collaborations with Lorenzo da Ponte, the Italian opera Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro). In 1787, the year of his father's death, came a further opera with Lorenzo da Ponte, Don Giovanni, and in 1790, with the same poet, Così fan tutte, otherwise known as La scuola degli amanti (The School of Lovers). The following year Mozart w rote two operas, La clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus) as a coronation opera for Prague and a German magic opera, Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) for a suburban theatre in Vienna, where it was still running at the time ofhis death early in December. Così fan tutte (All Women Behave Like That) was commissioned, at the wish of the Emperor Joseph II, after the successful revival of The Marriage of Figaro in August 1789. The initial run of the new opera, which opened on 26th January, was cut short by the death of the Emperor on 20th February and a consequent period of court mourning. The five earlier performances were followed by five more during the summer. In 1791 there was a performance in German in Frankfurt, and performances in the original Italian in Leipzig, Prague and Dresden. After Mozart's death the opera enjoyed some popularity, but the apparent frivolity of its subject proved generally unacceptable as the nineteenth century progressed. It was revived in its original form by Hermann Levi in Munich in 1896 and by Gustav Mahler in Vienna in 1900. The story of Così fan tutte is, in essence, an old one. The cynical Don Alfonso induces his young friends Guglielmo and Ferrando to test the fidelity of the sisters they love, Fiordiligi and Dorabella. This they do by pretending to go to the war, immediately