Translation: Thus do all [women]. Cosi fan tutte was the final collaboration of Mozart and his most capable librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte.
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Short Synopsis:
Two soldiers brag about the faithfulness of their fiancées. A worldly older man Don Alfonso bets them that, if he has their complete cooperation, he can prove within a single day that their fiancées, like all women, are fickle. The plan is arranged. The soldiers pretend to be suddenly ordered to report for duty. There is a tearful farewell.
As the women are bemoaning their fate, their saucy maid tells them to find new lovers – no men are worth much; you might as well have some fun. Don Alfonso arrives and, fearing that the maid will see through the soldier's disguises, bribes the maid to play along. The soldiers visit the women disguised as mustachioed Albanians and attempt to woo the women, each targeting the other's fiancée, and are relieved to find that the women rebuff their affections. The soprano declares that she is as firm as a rock. The mezzo-soprano wavers a bit but also resists. The Albanians depart.
The Albanians come again. They threaten to take poison if the women do not favor them. The women refuse. The Albanians drink the poison and collapse on the floor. The maid, disguised as a doctor, arrives and revives the Albanians by means of a powerful magnet (a joking reference to Dr. Mesmer of mesmerism fame). The Albanians demand a kiss but are denied. The Albanians depart again, happy that their bet with Don Alonso looks like a sure thing.
The maid tries once more to talk the women into flirting with the Albanians ("You need men. Do what the army does: Recruit!") but the women say no. But after the maid leaves, the hot-blooded mezzo-soprano confesses to the soprano that she is tempted. The two decide that a harmless flirtation, if kept within careful bounds, would do no harm. The two women meet the Albanians in the garden and pair off as before, with each man taking the other's fiancée. The Albanian with the mezzo-soprano has some success. The Albanian with the soprano gets nowhere. Afterward, the Albanians get together to discuss their progress and the Albanian that is engaged to the mezzo-soprano is enraged that his friend has gotten the mezzo-soprano to respond.
The women also get together to compare notes. The mezzo-soprano confesses that she is falling for the Albanian who is wooing her. The soprano goes through anguish (expressed through a wrenchingly moving aria) about wanting to stay faithful to her betrothed. However, her Albanian (the mezzo-soprano's soldier) returns and ultimately wears her down. She succumbs.
A double wedding is arranged. The maid, disguised as a notary, has them all sign the marriage contracts. Then Don Alfonso secretly signals to some hired musicians to play military music and announces that the soldiers have returned from battle. The Albanians run off, pretending to fear the arriving soldiers, but actually leave to put on their uniforms and return as their true selves. To the dismay of the women, Don Alonso "accidentally" reveals the marriage contracts to the soldiers, who pretend to be enraged and stalk out. They immediately return dressed half in their uniforms and half in their Albanian disguises. The women realize that they have been tricked.
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Having become familiar with Da Ponte's life story, I was curious how this reprobate priest, clever court poet, and veteran seducer would compose a libretto. As I watched the opera, I paid close attention to the translated words and was struck by Da Ponte's consistency of theme and imagery throughout the opera. The libretto continually moved the action forward, conveyed the singer's emotions, and reinforced the conflict between faithfulness and betrayal. I was impressed that there was no padding or loss of focus during the entire three-hour production. However, a consequence of Da Ponte's "unity of effect" when combined with Mozart's perfectly suited music is that the opera exerts a power and realism that strains the conventions of a silly farce about fiancée swapping. When the soprano suffers over her conviction to stay faithful, the audience feels increasingly uncomfortable about the whole business of the Albanian trickery.
The opera's program notes stated that audiences later in the nineteenth century found Da Ponte's libretto to be offensive and immoral. I can easily understand this reaction. The soldier/Albanians are fools; and Don Alfonso and the maid are manipulative and foul-minded, despite their veneer of charm and sophistication. The opera is an unrelenting attack on the standards of fidelity and honor between the sexes. The attack cannot be excused by claiming that these standards are naively held and therefore deserve to be challenged. Don Alfonso's corrupting influence cannot be justified as merely educating the unsophisticated into the ways of the world, as is implied by the opera's alternate title: The School for Lovers. One definition of immorality is to willfully misuse good things for bad purposes. Cosi fan tutte applies splendid music and clever lyrics to a decadent story of betrayal and disillusionment disguised as comic opera. A thing that is not worth doing is surely not worth doing brilliantly.
I was pleased that Opera Colorado managed to attach a moral ending to the opera. Da Ponte's libretto brought a disturbing realism into the story, so it was appropriate that the ending be psychologically realistic as well. The final scene has each of the fiancées struggling to decide which man to embrace, her original soldier or the other soldier, who was her Albanian lover. After painful hesitation, the women find that they can't deal with all the emotional damage and both abandon the stage.
