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Authors: Rupert Christiansen
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the formal arias of old-fashioned opera seria, with its exaggeratedly heroic sentiments and cruelly wide leaps; the second, ‘Per pietà’, is a ravishing rondo, introspective in mood, with a melancholy horn obbligato.
As in the case of Figaro, the ensembles in Così are as vivacious and inventive as the arias, particularly in Act I, with its rapturous trio, ‘Soave sia il vento’, sung as the ladies wavefarewell to the ‘departing’ officers, and its brilliantly amusing comic finale.In a weak performance, the second act can seem a slight anticlimax, hanging fire both dramatically and musically – hence the desirability of a smart cut or two.
In performance
For most of the twentieth century, Così was staged as a pretty rococo fantasy of a sort often depicted on the top of chocolate boxes; in the 1970s, it became more like a drily witty satire comparable to a novel by Jane Austen.Latterly, it has been seen as harshly contemporary: one rarely encounters the opera costumed in late eighteenth-century style, and it has often been staged as the sort of modern sexual comedy familiar to fans of television series such as Friends: one famous version, directed by David Freeman for Opera Factory, set the opera on the beach of an Italian resort; while Peter Sellars saw it all as a muddle suffered by some teenagers hanging out in Despina’s Diner.
Producers have also become obsessed with the scenario’s darker implications: is the opera anti-feminist, or are the women simply innocent victims of male bullying and condescension?Is Don Alfonso a ruthless behavioural scientist or a Sadean manipulator, with deeply questionable motives?Is the ending a happy one, or do all four of the lovers retire bitter and hurt?Does it matter who gets who in the end, or does nobody get anybody?What has anyone learned from their embarrassing experience?
This opera is no longer regarded as a laughing matter.But it shouldn’t be forgotten that Così was conceived as a comedy, written for the sophisticated audience of the Viennese court in the style made fashionable by French playwrights such as Marivaux, who depicted highly cultivated people playing with the subtleties and contradictions of erotic love in the spirit of a game.
Recordings
CD: Montserrat Caballé (Fiordiligi); Colin Davis (cond.).Philips LRC 1044
Hillevi Martinpelto (Fiordiligi); Simon Rattle (cond.).EMI 5556170 2
DVD: Cecilia Bartoli (Fiordiligi); Nikolaus Harnoncourt (cond.).Zurich Opera production.Arthaus 012
La Clemenza di Tito
( The Clemency of Titus)
Two acts. First performed Prague, 1791.
Libretto by Caterino Mazzolà
Written in haste to mark the coronation of Leopold II of Bohemia, with a brief to honour the occasion with something conservative and conventional in form, this opera marks a stylistic retreat from both Gluckian principles and the free spirit which informs Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni to the rigidity and decorum of opera seria. The première was a disaster, not least because the non-arrival of the royal party delayed the start by three hours!
Although popular during the years following Mozart’s death – in 1806, it became the first of his operas to be performed in London – its critical reputation sank dramatically thereafter.Wagner thought it ‘stiff and dry’, while the great Mozart scholar of the 1920s, Edward J.Dent, wrote it off as ‘pompous and frigid’.It is only in the last thirty years or so, with the renewed interest in early eighteenth-century opera, that the merits and beauties of the score have been recognized.
The libretto was swiftly adapted from an existing text written in 1734 by Pietro Metastasio.The plot revolves around one of those tiresome ‘A loves B loves C’ scenarios so common to Handelian opera.On paper, the motivations of the central characters may seem implausible – Sesto, one feels, could not be such an idiot, nor Tito so impolitic – but Mozart’s music dramatizes their emotions with great force and
As in the case of Figaro, the ensembles in Così are as vivacious and inventive as the arias, particularly in Act I, with its rapturous trio, ‘Soave sia il vento’, sung as the ladies wavefarewell to the ‘departing’ officers, and its brilliantly amusing comic finale.In a weak performance, the second act can seem a slight anticlimax, hanging fire both dramatically and musically – hence the desirability of a smart cut or two.
In performance
For most of the twentieth century, Così was staged as a pretty rococo fantasy of a sort often depicted on the top of chocolate boxes; in the 1970s, it became more like a drily witty satire comparable to a novel by Jane Austen.Latterly, it has been seen as harshly contemporary: one rarely encounters the opera costumed in late eighteenth-century style, and it has often been staged as the sort of modern sexual comedy familiar to fans of television series such as Friends: one famous version, directed by David Freeman for Opera Factory, set the opera on the beach of an Italian resort; while Peter Sellars saw it all as a muddle suffered by some teenagers hanging out in Despina’s Diner.
Producers have also become obsessed with the scenario’s darker implications: is the opera anti-feminist, or are the women simply innocent victims of male bullying and condescension?Is Don Alfonso a ruthless behavioural scientist or a Sadean manipulator, with deeply questionable motives?Is the ending a happy one, or do all four of the lovers retire bitter and hurt?Does it matter who gets who in the end, or does nobody get anybody?What has anyone learned from their embarrassing experience?
This opera is no longer regarded as a laughing matter.But it shouldn’t be forgotten that Così was conceived as a comedy, written for the sophisticated audience of the Viennese court in the style made fashionable by French playwrights such as Marivaux, who depicted highly cultivated people playing with the subtleties and contradictions of erotic love in the spirit of a game.
Recordings
CD: Montserrat Caballé (Fiordiligi); Colin Davis (cond.).Philips LRC 1044
Hillevi Martinpelto (Fiordiligi); Simon Rattle (cond.).EMI 5556170 2
DVD: Cecilia Bartoli (Fiordiligi); Nikolaus Harnoncourt (cond.).Zurich Opera production.Arthaus 012
La Clemenza di Tito
( The Clemency of Titus)
Two acts. First performed Prague, 1791.
Libretto by Caterino Mazzolà
Written in haste to mark the coronation of Leopold II of Bohemia, with a brief to honour the occasion with something conservative and conventional in form, this opera marks a stylistic retreat from both Gluckian principles and the free spirit which informs Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni to the rigidity and decorum of opera seria. The première was a disaster, not least because the non-arrival of the royal party delayed the start by three hours!
Although popular during the years following Mozart’s death – in 1806, it became the first of his operas to be performed in London – its critical reputation sank dramatically thereafter.Wagner thought it ‘stiff and dry’, while the great Mozart scholar of the 1920s, Edward J.Dent, wrote it off as ‘pompous and frigid’.It is only in the last thirty years or so, with the renewed interest in early eighteenth-century opera, that the merits and beauties of the score have been recognized.
The libretto was swiftly adapted from an existing text written in 1734 by Pietro Metastasio.The plot revolves around one of those tiresome ‘A loves B loves C’ scenarios so common to Handelian opera.On paper, the motivations of the central characters may seem implausible – Sesto, one feels, could not be such an idiot, nor Tito so impolitic – but Mozart’s music dramatizes their emotions with great force and
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