The Libretto ? Just how original is it?
Unlike Figaro and Don Giovanni, there is no direct literary ancestor for Così fan tutte. That doesn't mean Da Ponte didn't draw from a multitude of sources when he concocted his new libretto. Masked as a frothy confection suited to the tastes of the Viennese, the opera has a rich pedigree, a tapestry of influences and allusions, and a testament to the librettist's erudite knowledge. On the surface, the text is packed with intelligent little bon mots generously sprinkled all over the place (mostly uttered by Don Alfonso), many of which are lost on a modern audience, especially in translation.
The libretto also draws from two traditions in literature, one of wager, the other of exchanged lovers. One can go as far back as Livy's History of Rome to find a gamble on fidelity. During the sixth century b.c.e ., a bet made between several encamped generals leads to the discovery of their wives' indiscretions in their absence, save one, the virtuous Lucretia, whom Tarquinius later rapes (a familiar subject for the visual arts and treated operatically by Benjamin Britten in 1946). Boccaccio has a similar stake with regard to a wife's fidelity in his Decamerone (1348-53; ninth novella of the second day), a theme picked up and embellished by Shakespeare in his Cymbeline ? Posthumus makes a bet with Iachimo on the chastity of his new wife, Imogen. After several unsuccessful attempts at seduction, the crafty Iachimo hides in a chest, which is then carried into Imogen's room. While she sleeps, he observes a mole under her breast (otherwise unseen). He steals a bracelet Posthumus gave to his bride as a wedding gift and uses both as damning evidence of a supposed indiscretion. Shakespeare would have been known to Da Ponte and Mozart as his plays were frequently performed in Vienna during the 1780s. Several other dropped references also point to the Bard, including the ?phoenix of Araby,? Alfonso's remark with respect to a woman's fidelity ? rumored, but never observed ? and Fiordiligi calling Ferrando a ?basilisk,? monsters capable of killing with only a look (Posthumus uses the term to describe his faithless bride). Shakespeare also provided a model in his play A Midsummer Night's Dream, which features two sets of mismatched couples.
Few of these stories have happy ends, save Cymbeline (only Cloten, the evil queen's rotten son originally betrothed to Imogen, loses his head). Among a number of other parallels, one close antecedent surely known to Da Ponte, Choderlos de Laclos's Les liaisons dangereuses (1782), describes a sexual wager on a woman's chaste devotion to her husband. By the end of the drama, all parties involved are ruined.
The other branch of Così' s origins stems from the notion of testing fidelity by means of a disguise. This too goes back to antiquity, Ovid's treatment of the mythical Procris and Cephalus in his Metamorphoses . Here Cephalus tests the constancy of his wife Procris by showering her with gifts while disguised. Procris falters, and when the truth is discovered, rushes off to join the nymphs of Diana. The couple reconciles but news soon reaches Procris that Cephalus is now having an affair. She follows him into the woods and overhears some suggestive remarks. Hearing her sigh, Cephalus believes Procris is a wild animal and hurls his javelin into the bushes, killing his wife. It is later discovered Cephalus was only talking to the breeze.
The Procris myth became a paragon of virtue throughout the Middle Ages as a warning to those who doubt their spouse's commitment and the consequences of idle gossip. A Ferrarese playwright, Niccolo da Correggio, wrote a play on this topic in 1487 while in the service of Duke Ercole d'Este. A successor, Ludovico Ariosto, worked for Ercole's sons Ippolito and Alfonso (later Duke of Ferrara and husband of arts patroness Lucrezia Borgia). Inspired to complete Matteo Maria Boiardo's Orlando innamorato, Ariosto wrote his own Orlando furioso (1509), also using Orlando (Roland), nephew of Charlemagne, as his main protagonist. One canto details a similar test of devotion while magically disguised. Another features two men's fruitless search for a faithful female. The names of all three women ? Fiordiligi, Doralice and Fiordespina ? are found within the text. Ariosto was one of Da Ponte's favorite authors and well known to the canon of opera ? his poetry inspired works by two of the genre's pioneers, Jacopo Peri's Lo sposalizio di Medoro et Angelica (1619) and Francesca Caccini's La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina (1625). The popularity of Ariosto's writings reached its zenith in the early 18 th -century works of George Frideric Handel. There is little doubt Orlando furioso is one of Così 's primary sources.
One must also consider the impact of Rococo theater, then still fairly fresh, particularity the works of Pierre Marivaux. His works, most notably La dispute (1744) and Le jeu de l'amour et du hazard (The Game of Love and Chance; 1730), further developed the notion of a ?School for Lovers.? The first text tests the constancy of love in an ?Adam and Eve? vacuum ? two mixed pairs of children are raised with no outside contact (save a supervisory adult). Twenty years later they are all put together to see which sex strays first (a non-monetary bet is made as well). In Le jeu, Marivaux again juxtaposes two couples. An engaged woman adopts the costume of her maid in order to observe her previously unseen fiancé. Her husband-to-be does the same with his own valet. A love affair ensues, but is complicated by the fact that neither believes they can cross class lines when it comes time to marry (each still believes the other to be a servant). This casual treatment of love is reinforced by the Rococo period's visual artists in their depiction of idealized ?courtly romance? in the sexually suggestive and vaguely erotic works of Jean Honoré Fragonard ( The Swing; 1766) and his forerunner Jean-Antoine Watteau ( Embarkation for Cythera ; 1717). One significant attribute of Rococo art was its knack for treating the human condition with play and pretense.
The typical Italian commedia dell'arte tricks of the trade (the disguises, the notary, the doctor, the spunky, somewhat spiteful, world-wise maid) make their way into Così as well, reinforced by the dramas of Carlo Goldoni, which were very influential as opera buffa developed during the 1760s and ?70s. One notable libretto, Le pescatrici ( The Fisherwomen; 1770; set by Franz Joseph Haydn, among others) also involves a pair of disguised men seeking to outwit their lovers. This sort of ?scuola degli amanti? became a staple for opera buffa, which explored all of its facets ? courtship, jealousy, marriage and delusion. The Viennese were preoccupied by amore and took comfort seeing similar plots reworked over and over, with slightly different twists and trappings.
Topicality is another feature, as we have already seen with the faulty ?true story? rumors of Così' s real-life roots. Mozart allowed another curious reference to current events, the inclusion of the Mesmer magnet for Dr. Despina's display of medical quackery at the end of Act I. Anton Mesmer was friendly with the Mozart family during young Wolfgang's prodigy years and was a willing patron in the days that followed Leopold Mozart's ill-fated attempt at getting his son's La finta semplice staged by the imperial theater. Mesmer is rumored to have hosted the premiere of the composer's Bastien und Bastienne in his living room in 1768. He was a physician of sorts, who specialized in cures by way of hypnotic suggestion (thus earning a place in the English lexicon in the word ?mesmerize?), the glass harmonica and magnetism. For a few years his theories proved successful, but by 1784, the truth behind his fallacious experiments was exposed. It seems odd the composer would be so discourteous to a former friend, but as it turns out, the Mozarts were closer with Mesmer's soon-to-be estranged wife rather than the so-called doctor.
As many opera buffa plots bore striking resemblances to one another, it's hardly surprising that Così shows a strong likeness to a recent Burgtheater comedy, La grotta di Trofonio (1785) by Antonio Salieri, set to text by Da Ponte's literary rival Giovanni Battista Casti. Once again, pairs of crisscrossed lovers find they are attracted to the temperament of the opposite partner in the other couple. Trofonio's grotto has the ability to magically change one's disposition upon entering. Naturally, mayhem follows when each sex tries the cave out in order to achieve the ultimate coupling.
Also described as a filosofo, Trofonio's whiff of the supernatural comes from a play on the broader 18 th -century understanding of the word ? one who deals with astronomy, astrology and the mystical arts in addition to espousing rational thought and tutelage. Though a bit more grounded, the philosopher Don Alfonso appears to guide his experiment with a sense of destiny, knowing from the very beginning how things will turn out. The same air of cosmic manipulation surrounds Alidoro (also a learned man) in Rossini's La Cenerentola, who creates storms and rolls carriages, and again may be derived from Shakespeare, this time The Tempest' s Prospero, who similarly makes rain fall and all things enchanted .
Not unlike Marivaux's La dispute, Alfonso's test tube is an enclosed symmetrical environment, a small world consisting of three men and three women. Aided by his willing and able laboratory assistant, the academician explores a setting ripe for upset. Two young women living in sunny, carefree Naples with their boyfriends (their uniforms are, after all, hanging in the closet), not bound by marriage, impressionable and easily persuadable into a sexual relationship, perhaps with another man. Like Trofonio, Alfonso may believe that the two couples are mismatched in disposition and intends to set things right. Certainly the musical tradition dictated the two seria characters, the soul-searching Fiordiligi and emasculated Ferrando (not unlike Anna and Ottavio in Don Giovanni ), belong together just as the more sentimental Dorabella and earthy Guglielmo do (both mezze carattare or middle characters caught in-between comedy and tragedy, not unlike Don Giovanni himself). Though tradition required the original couples reunite, there is a sense that new feelings have been awakened and alternative alliances may be in the future. Billed as an opera buffa, the opera has a sense of weight and gravity ? the artifice of comedy is revealed in Act I, then removed by the end of Act II to reveal layers of meaning and a more natural play of events.
Così fan tutte? ? ?thus do they all,? or something to that effect. An idiom tailored to the minds of the Viennese, an error in marketing that may have led to the opera's slow rise in popularity. Perhaps the title indicates Mozart's willingness to forgive his errant wife's indiscretion ? it was composer's idea to quote from his own work, a phrase uttered by Don Basilio in Act I of Figaro and a reference his audience would likely understand. Out of context the opera is often misunderstood, perhaps the reason why this masterpiece still remains undiscovered or even under-discovered for so many listeners.
