Chapter 1 - An overture to Così fan tutte: the poetics of the opera over two centuries

Summary

During the two centuries following its premiere, the news about Così fan tutte has generally not been good. Most of the nineteenth century and a good part of the twentieth condemned it, altered it beyond recognition, or, more frequently, simply ignored it. Today, the opera enjoys a more secure place in the repertory, yet opinion about and approaches to the work have shown remarkable stability over this span. In tracing a path back through the critical history of the opera, one spots a single perception above all others: that the opera's text seems to be incompatible with its music. This introduction will explore and assess this central issue in Così fan tutte's reception with two particular historical/critical objectives in mind. First, it will show how present-day thinking about the opera comes out of critical approaches formulated in the nineteenth century. Then, it will offer a different way of conceiving the opera's handling of word and tone, one that finds agreement rather than incongruity between the two.

A HISTORY OF WORD/MUSIC RELATIONS IN COSÌ FAN TUTTE

Nineteenth-century roots to modern thought

Although isolated complaints dot the beginnings of Così fan tutte's reception, a more consistent animus toward the opera spread with the life-and-works studies that appeared from the close of the eighteenth century. Niemetschek's Leben of 1798 inaugurates the tradition with this oft-cited comment: “One wonders how [Mozart] could have condescended to squander his divine melodies on such a frivolous hodgepodge of a text.