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Salieri's Così fan tutte

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2008

Bruce Alan Brown  and
John A. Rice
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Extract

The several contradictory, and even apologetic, explanations that were put forward concerning the origins of Mozart's Così fan tutte, ossia La scola degli amanti in the years following its première in 1790 reflect both the dearth of hard information concerning the commission to Mozart, and the unease with which the post-Josephinian era greeted this most unsettling of comic operas. One of the composer's first biographers, Franz Xaver Nêmetschek, wrote:

In the year 1789 in the month of December Mozart wrote the Italian comic opera Cosi fan tutte, or ‘The School for Lovers’; people are universally amazed that this great genius could condescend to waste his heavenly sweet melodies on such a miserable and clumsy text. It was not in his power to refuse the commission, and the text was given expressly to him.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Opera Journal , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , March 1996 , pp. 17 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 See Němetschek, , Lebensbeschreibung des k. k. Kapellmeisters Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, aus Originalquellen (Prague, 1808; rpt. Leipzig, 1978), 43Google Scholar ‘In dem Jahre 1789 im Monat December schrieb Mozart das italienische komische Singspiel, Così fan tutte, oder die Schule der Liebenden; man wundert sich allgemein, wie der große Geist sich herablassen konnte, an ein so elendes Machwerk von Text seine himmlisch süßen Melodien zu verschwenden. Es stand nicht in seiner Gewalt, den Auftrag abzulehnen, und der Text ward ihm ausdrücklich aufgetragen.’ (All translations are those of the authors unless otherwise noted.) The overly precise date of December 1789 perhaps reflects Nemetschek's awareness of the earliest mention of the opera by Mozart himself, an entry in his thematic catalogue (‘VerzeichnüßC aller meiner Werke’) during that month for the rejected aria ‘Rivolgete a lui lo sguardo’ for Guilelmo.

2 von Nissen, Georg Nikolaus, Anhang zu W. A. Mozarts Biograpbie, nach Originalbriefen, Sammlungen alles über ihn Geschriebenen, mit vielen neuen Beylagen, Steindrücken, Musikblättern und einem Facsimile, ed. Nissen, Constanze Mozart (Leipzig, 1828;Google Scholar rpt. Hildesheim, 1964), 92–3.

3 Heinse, Friedrich, Reise- und Lebens-Skizzen nebst dramaturgiscben Blättem. 1. Teil (Leipzig, 1837), 183ff.Google Scholar, quoted in Kramer, Kurt, ‘Da Pontes “così fan tutte”’, Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, 1. Philologisch-historische Klasse, Jhrg. 1973, No. 1 (Gottingen, 1973), 1–27Google Scholar (4) ‘… Mozart nämlich von Joseph II. ausdrücklich mit der Composition gerade dieses Librettos beauftragt worden ist. Einem Gerücht nach hatte eine zwischen zwei Offizieren und deren Geliebten damals in Wien wirklich vorgefallene, dem Intreccio des Textbuches ähnliche Stadtgeschichte dem Kaiser Veranlassung geboten, seinen Hofpoeten Guemara mit der Kommission zu beehren, aus dieser Klatscherei ein Drama giocoso da mettersi in musica zu machen.’

4 Letter of 16 May 1788 to Count Orsini-Rosenberg, Franz, quoted in Rudolf Payer von Thurn, Joseph II. als Theaterdirektor (Vienna and Leipzig, 1920), 75.Google Scholar

5 Ponte, Da, An Extract from the Life of Lorenzo da Ponte, with the History of Several Dramas Written by Him, and among others, II Figaro, II Don Giovanni, & La scola degli amanti: Set to Music by Mozart (New York, 1819), 19–20.Google Scholar

6 Ponte, Da, Memorie, ed. Pagnini, Cesare (Milan, 1960), 135Google Scholar ‘Per mia disgrazia capitò una cantante, che, senza avere gran pregio di bellezza, mi dilettó pria col suo canto; indi, mostrando gran propensione per me, finii coll'innamorarmene. … Scrissi per lei Il pastor fido e La cifra con musica di Salieri, drammi che non formaron epoca nelle glorie musicali di quello, sebbene in varie parti bellissime; e La scola degli amanti, con musica di Mozzart, dramma che tiene il terzo loco tra le sorelle nate da quel celeberrimo padre dell'armonia.’

7 Letter of 16 June 1781 to Mozart, Leopold, in Mozart Briefe und Aufiyichnungen, ed. Bauer, Wilhelm A., Deutsch, Otto Erich and Eibl, Joseph Heinz, 7 vols. (Kassel, 1962–1975), III, 132.Google Scholar Prominent among explorations of così's literary content are Gombrich, Ernst, ‘così fan tutte (Procris Included), Journal ofthe Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 17 (1954), 372–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar the discussion of the opera in Rosen's, CharlesThe Classical Style (New York, 1971), 314–17Google Scholar, the above-cited article by Kramer, KurtGoogle Scholar, Steptoe, Andrew, ‘The Sources of Cost fan tutte: A Reappraisal’, Music & Letters, 62 (1981), 281–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, (later incorporated into Chapter 6 of The Mozart-Da Ponte Operas: The Cultural and Musical Background to Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and così fan tutte [Oxford, 1988])Google Scholar, Goldin, Daniela, La vera fenice: Librettisti e libretti tra Sette e Ottocento (Turin, 1985), 116–29Google Scholar, Chapters 13 and 14 of Heartz, Daniel, Mozart's Operas, ed., with contributing essays, by Bauman, Thomas (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1990)Google Scholar, the as yet unpublished study by Dunstan, Elizabeth M., ‘Da Ponte and Ariosto’.Google Scholar, See also Brown, Bruce Alan, W. A. Mozart così fan tutte (Cambridge, 1995), 57–81.Google Scholar

8 Rochlitz, Friedrich, ‘Nachschrift zur Recension von Eyblers Requiem’, Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 28: 21 (24 05 1826), cols. 337–40 (338–9)Google Scholar ‘Denn als Mozart die Oper così fan tutte schrieb, und mit dem Instrumentiren noch nicht fertig war, gleichwohl die Zeit drängte: so ersuchte er mich, die Gesang-proben zu halten und besonders die beyden Sängerinnen, Ferarese und Villeneuve, einzustudiren; wo ich Gelegenheit vollauf fand, das Theaterleben, mit seinen Unruhen, Kabalen u. dgl. m. kennen zu lernen …’ (For when Mozart was writing the opera Cost fan tutte, and was not yet finished with the scoring, and time was short, he asked me to conduct the vocal rehearsals, and particularly to coach the singers Ferarese und Villeneuve, whereby I had more than enough opportunity to become acquainted with life in the theatre, and with its disturbances, cabals, and so forth …).

9 Vincent, and Novello, Mary, A Mozart Pilgrimage. Being the Travel Diaries of Vincent & Mary Novello in the Year 1829, ed. Hughes, Rosemary and di Marignano, Nerina Medici (London, 1955).Google Scholar

10 See Weston, Pamela, ‘Vincent Novello's Autograph Album: Inventory and Commentary’, in Music & Letters, 75 (1994), 365–80 (367).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Weston notes (374) that Constanze Mozart Nissen conversed with the Novellos mainly in French.

11 Novello, , A Mozart Pilgrimage, 127.Google Scholar

12 Landon, H. C. Robbins, for instance, quotes without comment the remarks of Mary Novello, along with other statements on the origins of Così fan tutte, in Mozart The Golden Years, 1781–1791 (London and New York, 1989), 174.Google Scholar, Mozart's invitation to Puchberg, from the end of December 1789, is worded as follows: ‘Donnerstag aber lade ich Sie (aber nur Sie allein) um 10 Uhr Vormittag zu mir ein, zu einer kleinen Oper=Probe; – nur Sie und Haydn lade ich dazu. – Mundlich werde ich Ihnen Cabalen von Salieri erzahlen, die aber alle schon zu Wasser geworden sind –’ (Mozart Briefe, IV, 100).

13 See Mozart's letter to his father of 2 July 1783, in Mozart Briefe, III, 276–7.

14 The manuscript was transferred to the Musiksammlung from the former Hofkapelle in 1929, at which time it was given a standard library binding. The authors are grateful to Dr Rita Steblin of Vienna for checking the accuracy of our transcription of the catalogue card, and for supplying information on the library's acquisition of the manuscript.

15 Angermüller, Rudolph, Antonio Salieri: Sein Leben und seine weltlichen Werke unter besonderer Berücksichtigung seiner ‘großen’ Opem, 3 vols. (Munich, 1971–1974), vol. I.Google Scholar

16 This same form of signature is to be found on other of Salieri's autograph scores, particularly those of detached or miscellaneous pieces – e.g. the aria ‘Sento l'amico speme’ from the disorderly collection of numbers from the composer's Semiramide (Munich, 1782;Google Scholar A-Wn, Mus. Hs. 16605). The full score of La locandiera (Vienna, 1773 A-Wn, Mus. Hs. 16179) is also signed by Salieri in this fashion.

17 The paper of watermark no. 100 corresponds to ‘Type II’ in Tyson's analysis of paper-types used in Così, in Mozart Studies of the Autograph Scons (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1987), 180–3.Google Scholar The first completed and dated work that Mozart wrote on this paper was the aria ‘Schon lacht der holde Frühling’, K. 580 (17 September 1789). See Tyson, Alan, Dokumentation der autographen Überlieferung: Wasserzeichen-Katalog, in Mozatt, Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, X: 33/2 (Kassel, 1992), 47–8Google Scholar. Surviving examples of this paper among Mozart's autographs are all ruled with twelve staves, whereas the score of Salieri's piece has only ten; as Tyson suggests elsewhere (227), Mozart may have maintained a stock of unruled paper, portions of which he took to a music shop for ruling from time to time.

18 Ponte, Da, Memorie, 91Google Scholar ‘colto, dotto, sebbene maestro di cappella, ed amantissimo de' letterati’.

19 A-Wn, Mus. Hs. 16517: ‘Già d'allora [i.e., ‘in fresca età’] pigliai ii costume, mettendo in musica poesia tirata dalla storia o d'altra fonte, di legger, per tutto ii tempo che componevo, il Poema e Ia storia da cui il Poeta avea tirato il suo soggetto. La lettura dei Canti nella Gerusalemme liberata del Tasso che riguardano Rinaldo nell'Isola d'Armida, mi han fatto venir l'idea di compor per sinfonia di quest'opera una specie di Pantomima, come un antisoggetto.’

20 Mazzolà's and Salieri's opera had first been performed in Venice during Carnival 1779. French ‘école’ plays (i.e., with this word in their titles) far outnumber Italian ‘scuola’ (or ‘scola’) libretti. When Da Ponte wrote La scola degli amanti only a handful of such operas had been performed, see Sartori, Claudio, I libretti italiani a stampa dalle orzgini al 1800, 7 vols (Cuneo, 1990–1994), V, 160–6.Google Scholar These works included, as it happens, an opera entitled La scola degli amanti by Giuseppe Palombo which, with music by Giacomo Tritto, was given in Naples in 1783 and in Palermo in 1784.

21 Goldoni quoted the quatrain in La scuola moderna of 1748; see Heartz, , Mozart's Operas, 229. Da Ponte's earliest use of this maxim was in his first libretto for Vienna – and for Salieri, Il ricco d'un giorno of 1784 (11.9, Giacinto to Emilia): ‘Siete savissima,/Ciascun lo dice,/Siete l'arabica/Rara Fenice.’Google Scholar

22 The pieces in question are the aria ‘Se più felice oggetto’ from the first-named opera, and the recitative ‘Basta, vinceste: eccoti ii foglio’ and aria ‘Ah non lasciarmi, no’ from the second.

23 See Braunbehrens, Volkmar, Maligned Master: The Real Story of Antonio Salieri, trans. Kanes, Eveline L. (New York, 1992), 75, 273.Google Scholar

24 See Tyson, , Mozaft: Studies of the Autograph Scores, 190, 197.Google Scholar

25 See Mosel, Ignaz von, ueber das Leben and die W'erke des Anton Salieri (Vienna, 1827), 32: ‘…Google Scholar befiel mich em unwiderstehliches Verlangen, die Introduction der Oper in Musik zu setzen. Ich suchte mir daher den Character und die Situation der Personen recht lebhaft vor Augen zu stellen, und plötzlich fand ich eine Bewegung des Orchesters, die mir den, dem Texte nach zerstückten Gesang des Tonstuckes angemessen zu tragen und zu verbinden schien. Ich versetzte mich nun im Geiste in das Parterre, hörte meine Ideen ausführen; sie schienen mit characteristisch; ich schrieb sie auf, prufte sie nochmal, und da ich damit zufrieden war, fuhr ich wieder fort. So stand in einer halben Stunde der Entwurf der Introduction auf dem Notenbiatte. Wer war vergnügter als ich!' Salieri's account is discussed and quoted at greater length by Heartz, in Mozart's Operas, 139, 154–5.Google Scholar

26 Mosel, , Salieri, 130:Google Scholar ‘schrieb er Scene für Scene, wie Da Ponte sic ihm brachte, einstweilen bios die Singstimmen mit dem Basse, und schickte sie zum Copisten, damit die Sänger sie unverzüglich einstudieren konnten.’

27 Mosel, , Salieri, 130Google Scholar: ‘Diese [the musicians] bemerketen bald, daβ in den eingelangten Notenblättern bios die Singstimmen vorhanden, die übrigen Linien aber (einige Ritornelle, oder hier und dort eine Andeutung des Accompagnements ausgenommen) für die Instrumente leer gelassen waren.’

28 Confirmation that this allusion was consciously intended can be found in a much later poem (c. 1821) by Da Ponte, a capitolo addressed to the American consul in Florence. Depicting the recitation of his students of Italian literature, Da Ponte describes Ariosto in terms that recall Brandimarte's dying utterance:

Pianger vedreste giovani e vecchioni al pianto di Francesco e d'Ugolino[,] fremer con Monti, rider con Goldoni; a mente declamar Mirra o il Mattino; e al suon celeste del cantor di Fiordi – ligi gridar: – Per Dio, questo è divino! –… (Personal communication from Elizabeth M. Dunstan, 6 July 1994.)

29 As Dunstan has pointed out (see n. 7), Fiordiligi's aria derives from a passage in 44: 61, Guilelmo's from the opening of Canto 28.

30 Dunstan, ‘Da Ponte and Ariosto’, 8.

31 See Tyson, , Moat Studies oftheAutograph Scores, 185–6.Google Scholar

32 The word ‘sempre’ was possibly added by Salieri; without it, the line is a proper settenario tronco.

33 Mosel, , Salieri, 66–7, 144.Google Scholar

34 Ibid., 67–9, 74.

35 Whether Mozart actually began setting this text we do not know; certainly the preparation of the libretto was well under way by the time he abandoned the project. See his letter of 5 February 1783 to his father, in MoZaft Briefe, III, 255.

36 Da Ponte, Memorie, 136: ‘Avendo io composto qudll'opera senza soccorso di compositore, e presivi quelli tra cantanti, che aveano un diritto alla munificenza del pubblico e del sovrano per i loro talenti, tutti gli altri, ch'esclusi vidersi, divenner furenti tanto contra Ia mia amica, per cui io avea immaginato quello spettacolo, che contra me. Quegli, che sopra tutti si risentí fu il bravo maestro Salieri; un uomo ch'io amai e stimai e per gratitudine e per incinazione, con cui passai molte ore dottamente felici, e che per sei anni continui … era stato, pin che amico, fratello mio. Il suo troppo affetto per la Cavallieri (nominiamola), donna che aveva abbastanza di merito per non aver bisogno d'alzarsi per via d'intrighi, e il mio, parimente soverchio, per la Ferraresi (nominiam anche questa), fu il dolente motivo di rompere un nodo d'amicizia, che dovea durar colla vita …

37 Franziska Kavalier, known by the stage-name Catarina Cavalieri, had created the role of Constanze in Mozart's Die Enfuhrung aus dem Serail.

38 In December 1790, a time when Da Ponte was still trying to ingratiate himself with the theatrical direction, he claimed to be collaborating with Salieri on an opera to be called Il filarmonico, but no trace of such a work remains; see Vienna, Staatsarchiv, Vertrauliche Akten, Karton 40, Nr. 2 (‘Cose dell' Ab. da Ponte’), ‘Memoria da me presentata alla Direzione il mese di Xbre dell'anno 1790’, fol. 23v.

39 ‘Cose dell' Ab. da Ponte’, fol. 19r: ‘Per far cantare la Cavalieri da prima Donna, ch'io aveva proposto di pensionare’. Regarding ‘La Willeneuve’, Da Ponte states (fol. 19v): ‘Costei dimenticò tutte le beneflcenze e cortesie della mia amicizia perchè non l'ho fatta entrare nell' Ape musicale’ (She forgot all my friendly favours and courtesies because I did not include her in L'ape musicale). This document is quoted also by Michtner, Otto, in ‘Der Fall Abbé Da Ponte’, Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs, 19 (1966), 170–209 (199).Google Scholar

40 See Braunbehrens, , Malzgned Master, 158–60.Google Scholar

41 Il pastor fido was performed three times in February 1789, then three more times in October and November. That Salieri revised the opera is known from payment records cited by Edge, Dexter in ‘Mozart's Fee for Cosí fan tutte’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 116 (1991), 211–35 (212, n. 4).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 La locandiera (first performed 1773) was restaged in 1782, and for the inauguration of Joseph‘s new buffo troupe in 1783 Salieri refurbished La scola de' gelosi with several new arias; La fiera di Venezia (1772) was revived in 1785.

43 See Edge, , ‘Mozart's Fee for Coní fan tutte’, 222Google Scholar. However, the fee of 450 gulden that Saberi received in May 1790, ‘for modifications beyond his obligation made over several years to various operas’, may have been intended as remuneration for the changes that he made in his earlier operas in preparation for their performance by Joseph's troupe; see Edge, 235.

44 See Mosel, , Salieri, 72.Google Scholar

45 Thurn, Payer von, Joseph II. als Theaferdirektor, 81.Google Scholar

46 Ponte, Da, Extract, 32.Google Scholar

47 Da Ponte could not offer his text to Martín y Soler, another favourite collaborator, as the latter was by this time established at the Russian court in St Petersburg.

48 Letter (to his daughter) of 11 November 1785, in Mozart Briefe, III, 444: ‘das wird ibm eben vieles Lauffen und disputieren kosten, bis er das Buch so eingerichtet bekommt, wie ers zu seiner Absicht zu haben wünschet …’; quoted and translated in Heartz, Mozart's Operas, 136.

49 See especially the duets Nos. 4 and 7, in both of which the participants trade off in singing difficult passaggi against a long sustained note.

50 This was Mozart's normal procedure at the beginning of an opera buffa, and also later in the drama, when introducing characters in a set piece; see Webster, James, ‘The Analysis of Mozart's Arias’, in Eisen, Cliff, ed., Mozart Studies (Oxford, 1991), 101–99 (124–5).Google Scholar

51 See Rice, John A., W. A. Mozart La clemeza di Tito (Cambridge, 1991), 7, 45.Google Scholar

52 See Heartz, , Mozart's Operas, 138.Google Scholar

53 Letter of 16 June 1781: ‘… denn wenn ich wirklich schon em buch hätte, so würde ich doch noch keine feder ansetzen, weil der graf Rosenberg nicht hier ist – wenn der auf die letzt das Buch nicht gut fände, so hätte ich die Ehre gehabt umsonst zu schreiben’ (… for even if I actually had a libretto already, I wouldn't set pen to paper yet, since Count Rosenberg isn't here – if in the end he didn't approve of the libretto, I would have had the honour of writing [an opera] in vain); Mozart: Btiefe, III, 132.

54 Part of John Rice's research for this article was made possible by a fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung.