Evening star., 1955-01-09

~ 4 AN0Ae~-~~NN~
being notable exceptions.
A friend of mine remarked
to me recently that Mozart
operas aroused little interest
Ia him, probably Che thought)
because opera was for him q
serious matter and he re-
sented the intrusion Of laugh
ter and frivolity. Now my
friend Is far from q dour per-
son, and his reaction gave me
pause.
It is unquestionably true
that since the 18th century
most opera has been tragic,
heroic. didactic, or otherwise
serious. Whether the reper-
toire has created the public
taste or whether the public's
expectation Of what 1t wants
In an evening at the opera
has divested the repertoire Of
comedy, Is a question demand
ing more than an off-hand
answer.
. "Cosi fan lutte" is the story
Of a wager between q cynic
and two friends. Don Alfonso
knows that constancy is for
ei7n to the nature Of woman
and easily enrages two young
officers, happily betrothed, to
the point where they bet him
q dinner that he cannot prove
their .f1ancees false within "A
hours Alfonso. needless to
say, wins his bet, but the de-
tails Of his strategy can more
appropriately be unfolded next
Wednesday and Thursday.
"Cosi fan tutte," like all Mo-
zart opera bu6d, makes great
use Of disguise and mistaken
identity, devices which confuse
the audience no less easily
than the persons Of the plot.
It may be well to point out
to those who do not know da
Ponies story and who want
to listen to the music with a
minimum Of distraction, that
the two soldiers are in disguise
from the end of the first
scene until nearly the end Of
the opera; that while the maid
Despina Tin two disguises) is
in league with Alfonso, she is
entirely innocent of knowledge
Of his plot; and that whether
the girls marry their original
lovers or their newfound ones
is a question that Is left to
each director Of the opera
da Ponte does not commit
himself.
Unlimited Musical voriety
Mozart probably never had
q libretto more to his liking.
It offered him unlimited op-
portunity for musical farce.
satire and parody. It moved
quickly and with the greatest
vivacity; the characterizations
were clear cut, and innuendo
and malice were everywhere
mixed with simplicity and fun.
But nobody knew better
than Mozart the necessity for
ambiguity in a great work Of
art. The line between farce
and earnest is constantly
crossed and recrosSed in "Cosi
fan tutte." The lovers time
and again expose themselves
as self-betrayers while they
deceive their girls. and the
cynicism Of Alfonso and Des-
pima is never far from tender
ness. Mozart himself plays
with the emotions and SYM
pathies Of the audience with
the magic Of an Ariel, for there
are many moments when we
think the composer has fallen
out of bufG and into the
center Of the most real human
passions.
High Stondord Throughout
Mozart's most infectious
parody is that Of himself. The
mock-tragic recitative Of Dor
abella in the first act clearly
makes fun Of the classic pas
sionate outcry of Donna Anna
in Mozart's own Don Gio-
vanni." The tremendous vo-
cal skips from the extremes Of
her register in the two great
arias of Fiordiligi are Of such
exaggerated coloratura vir-
tuosity that it Is almost as If
Mozart is sealing his own fate
by demanding not the impos-
sible but the inconceivable.
Yet "Cosi fan tutte" while it
is q caricature Of Mozart opera
never falls into the easy pit
Of becoming itself unmusical.
In numberless details "Cosi
fan tutte" is a miracle, but the
greatest miracle Is its unceas-
ing drive and the incredible
numbe r of good tunes that
spill out one after the other.
Nothing drags even for q mo-
ment. Mozart never seems In
a hurry to say the next word,
but when the time for 1t
comes. he has 1t ready. There
is enough music in the three
hours of "cosi fan tutte' to
make the reputation of two
dozen Italian operas by COM
posers more thrifty with their
melodies.
Paul Galloway, who will be
in charge Of this weeks per-
formances of "Cosi." has pre-
viously conducted Mozart's
"Idomeneo" and p,ircell's dido