Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosí fan tutte can be understood as three panels of an absolutely unique polyptych, with characters who question each other and characterize the multiple manifestations of the feeling of love. Mark Minkowski, a master specialized in period readings to whom the Gran Teatre del Liceu has assigned the marathon task of consecutively interpreting the operas, in four series, expressed himself unequivocally in his public appearance: they are "the most perfect in history". And it is that, despite their plot differences, they form a coherent whole in terms of musical and textual motifs, resulting from the prodigious connection between Wolfgang A. Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte. Stage director Ivan Alexandre was no less eloquent in explaining the links and internal echoes of the three operas, which allow them to be approached as variations of the same very complex theme, but also ---and here lies the greatest novelty--- being able to be understood as participants in the same "super-plot", which would show the evolution of the figure of the libertine.
"What we do is follow that character over nine hours," Alexandre explained. Thus, the beardless page of Le nozze di Figaro, Cherubino, who confesses to loving all the women in the palace ---Mozart conveys his adolescent effervescence with the tonal shifts of a voice in transformation--- will become Don Giovanni; a paradigm of an impenitent seducer who continues the path of amorous undifferentiation, moved by a fire that will moderate in the figure of Don Alfonso; the stoic sage ---and a bit cynical, why deny it--- who challenges the lovers/beloveds, the two main couples of Cosí fan tutte.
Although it is true that it is difficult to imagine a Don Giovannino letting himself be dressed as a woman in his tenderest age ---a role that, as is known, is played by a mezzosoprano--- or, already in old age, acting as a love counselor to bring his peers out of naivety and ignorance ---turned into a coach with unorthodox methods---, at the same time the idea that inspires the Minkowski-Alexandre duo is very convincing in its period staging, with a style that temporally situates the action and makes clear the validity of what is narrated.
"What we do is follow the evolution of the figure of the libertine over nine hours," explained Ivan AlexandreThe literary and musical unity of the three is appreciated in factors as crucial as their bipartite structure (also inNozze, as Da Ponte reduced the 5 acts of Beaumarchais's work to 4, enhancing that symmetry), the use of instruments and treatment of voices and, of course, in thecosmovision of the characters that intervene and interrelate, illustrating the multiplicity of manifestations of eros: from the instinctive impulse that is conveyed as an unbridled desire, to the loving sublimation that reveals an ethical dimension in the form of marital commitment. The characters act moved by affections that Mozart's music conveys with unmatched subtlety, through resources that certify his understanding with Da Ponte. A "mythical collaboration" ---pointed out Victor García de Gomar, artistic director of the Liceu--- that gave rise to those "three episodes of the same reality", understandable as stages in the formation of the libertine, according to the theme that permeates the literature of the time and thatexemplarilyplasmaDangerous Liaisons, an epistolary novel by Choderlos de Laclos published in 1782, that is, two years before the public premiere of Beaumarchais's play and four years before the opera.
ABOUT THE MOZART-DA PONTE SOCIETY
In retrospect, it seems inevitable to think that two characters as vital, restless, and creative as Wolfgang A. Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte were bound to meet, identify in each other the perfect complement to convey their respective art, and transcend their era with imperishable works. Reading the extraordinary adventures of the Italian, which he recounts in his Memoirs ---and which would make for several novels--- we discover, however, that the happy coincidence could perfectly well not have happened. Da Ponte was in high demand, writing simultaneously for the most popular composers in Vienna, and Mozart was not among them. Nevertheless, the astute librettist did detect his exceptionality. He refers to him as "dear friend" alongside Vicente Martín y Soler (miei due care amici Mozzart e Martini) and states that he understood that not just any libretto would allow him to exploit his best qualities as a composer: "I immediately realized that the immensity of his genius required an extensive, multifaceted, sublime theme." He is thinking, of course, of what would be their first collaboration, Le nozze di Figaro, which Minkowski has considered the summum of his production.
Da Ponte was in high demand, writing simultaneously for the most popular composers in Vienna, and Mozart was not among themDa Ponte acknowledges that it was Mozart who suggested adapting Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais's irreverent comedy into an operaThe Mad Day, or The Marriage of Figaro, which the emperor had forbidden in its original version. After six weeks of joint, perfectly coordinated work, the fundamental parts of the opera were composed. Before the emperor, Da Ponte justified the choice of this theme by saying that he had omitted many of the scenes,and all that "which could offend delicacy and decency". As for the music, he confesses that he found it: "of a wonderful beauty." For that very reason, and given the approval of the project, Da Ponte would not hesitate to embark on another no less ambitious one. At the same time that he was working on theAxur of Salieri andDiana's Treeof Martin i Soler, accepted the commission toThe Rake Punished, or the Don Giovanni. In his autobiographical account, he records the words of the entrepreneur responsible for the successful premiere in Prague: "Long live Da Ponte! Long live Mozart! All impresarios, all virtuosos must bless them. As long as they live, theatrical misery will never be known."
However, Da Ponte recalls the scarce success that, surprisingly, the opera that would become the most influential in the romantic mentality had in Vienna, alluding to the Emperor's words: "The opera is divine and perhaps more beautiful than Figaro, but it is not food for the teeth of my Viennese." To which Mozart would have replied something like "let's give them more time to chew on it." Unfortunately, time was running out for him, without him knowing it. As Norbert Elias explained in his sociological approach, it was the audacity of wanting to be professionally free, of living only for his art, that would end up causing economic hardship and lethal exhaustion. It is still alarming and sad to read the letter he sent on November 20, 1785, to the publisher Hoffmeister requesting money. It seems inexplicable how in that climate of growing precariousness Mozart could compose such ambitious scores as the trio of symphonies that Nikolaus Harnoncourt jointly recognized as an "oratorio without words" ---and which culminates with the exultant Symphony No. 41 in C major, "Jupiter"--- or the operatic trilogy that closes the carnivalesque Cosí fan tutte.
OVERTURES AND TRANSCENDENCE
The romantic mythification of Mozart ---his qualification as "genius"--- aims to provide an explanation for the perplexity aroused by the display of such fertile and visionary creativity, in not a few adverse circumstances. Even being epochally classical, his production plunges into a new conception of the work of art. Goethe described the Mozartian genius as "a creative force that continues to act, from generation to generation." In this same sense, Mark Minkowski pointed out in his speech that Mozart's operas represent "a model of perfection for romantic composers". As if impregnated before his time by the Geist or moved ---if we go back, in the opposite direction, to ancient mentality--- by some kind of daimon that fostered his creativity, Mozart ---in Minkowski's words--- "goes somewhere without knowing it himself." Impregnated with a non-discursive truth, impossible to ponder, his work crosses the threshold of the door that connects with that other era he did not know and is confirmed as timeless.
Goethe described the Mozartian genius as "a creative force that continues to act, from generation to generation"It is evident that Mozart did not intend to make a trilogy ---the stage director of the performances at the Liceu, Ivan Alexandre, points out with full honesty--- among other things because he could not foresee the fateful proximity of his end. And, even so, the aforementioned parallels ---regarding the structure, musical performances, plot theme, and worldview of the characters--- not only enable the joint understanding of the operas, but even allow tracing that "super-plot" ---in the style of the Wagnerian ring, the directors recall--- with the figure of the evolving libertine. Without being able to illustrate it with the deserved profusion, let us at least think of the overtures of each of the operas. For example, the instrumental opening of Le nozze di Figaro, agitated and jocular, seems to anticipate one of the most amusing situations, in which the page is forced to jump from a window, precipitating a series of deceptions and misunderstandings until the end of the second act ("Open, quickly open…"). A finale that Mozart musically prolongs for more than twenty minutes, without recitatives, with the harmonized participation in droves of a huge number of solo voices; comparable to what he would conceive asend of the first actof theDon Giovanni, with the presence of polyrhythms and never-before-seen scenic effects; and also in the middle of theCosí fan tutte, tragicallyomicly raising the tension to unusual heights.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hnd5ULYG2no
The overture to the second of the trilogy's operas, which thematically draws on famous and remote versions of the myth of the seducer ---from Tirso de Molina's stark Burlador de Sevilla, from 1616, to Molière's more theologically subversive Dom Juan, from 1665--- opens with an intensity unusual in Viennese Classicism creations. Somber tones, with the drum roll supported by brass, dragging the strings as if lengthening the shadow in assaults that suggest mystery, at the same time foreshadow the seriousness of the matter. The most romantic of Mozart's works, due to the presence of the sinister, is imbued with an ontological depth as its protagonist challenges the Law, in the figure of the Commendatore, whom the libertine murders in the first scenes. To relieve the tension of the atmosphere ---or to deepen that seriousness through contrast--- the qualification of "Dramma giocoso" by Mozart-DaPonte summons the contrasting register, which basically concentrates the figure of the servant Leporello. Don Giovanni's buffoonish alter ego, whose moral lightness is not far behind ---perhaps differing in the courage or cowardice of one and the other, to achieve what they desire--- and which the overture also seems to convey in its lighter passages, giving way to the initial lament "Note e giorno faticar…".
Søren Kierkegaard found in Don Giovanni a metaphorical explanation for the reality of desire, in light of the immediate dimension of affection that music conveys. Of course, he did not do so as a musicologist, but literarily, through the use of a pseudonymous author who ---as some specialists like to point out--- might well not represent his true opinion. Be that as it may, in its consubstantial discursive inadequacy, musical language conveys that which is ungraspable ---the will, Arthur Schopenhauer explains around the same time--- which, in its instinctive aspect, and from the polarity that Freudian psychoanalysis would also offer, can be associated with desire (and aggression: eros and thanatos). The principle that guarantees the perpetuation of the species and its sinister reverse, responsible in a jungle context for self-preservation, are conveyed through music from the overture of Don Giovanni, the most violent and dark opera. But also in Le nozze di Figaro there are "death struggles" ---the master-servant dialectic, in which men especially get entangled--- as well as in Cosí fan tutte.
THE DOMAIN OF WOMEN (OR THE DECEIVER DECEIVED)
The unfortunate expression that titles the opera closing the trilogy already appeared in Le nozze di Figaro, tendentiously applied to Susanna by the eccentric Don Basilio, and with the explicit gender ("Cosí fan tutte le belle…") which in Italian, in fact, the final "-e" already implies. The universal conditioning of desire, which Mozart's polyptych exhibits, could have given rise to an expression of the style è cosí che fanno tutti. For, even if it is they who deceive, one might ask to what extent deceiving deceivers implies "deception" or not. A comparable situation occurs in Figaro, when the Count falls into the trap set for him by the betrayed wife (the Countess) and the other desired but unrequited woman (Susanna) by exchanging clothes and roles in the middle of the night, at the end of that thrilling day. As Don Giovanni and Leporello also invert them to seduce a young woman and incidentally deceive the always dignified Elvira, who had already endured the servant's indecent laughter in the catalog aria (the flutes!), and who even at the very last moment tries to pull her beloved from the path of perdition.
Even if it is they who deceive, one might ask to what extent deceiving deceivers implies "deception" or notOn the occasion of the presentation of the Liceu's functions, Ivan Alexandre recalled how, generally,women maintain a higher moral status than men in Mozartian opera, who let themselves be carried away by desire ---like them, eventually--- but also by jealousy, revenge, and aggressiveness. Minkowski, for his part, went so far as to speak of Mozart's "feminism" ---something that for a long time and with other terms some specialists have expressed--- and to describe his operas as "a tribute to what women have to endure." The strength and compassion they demonstrate is certainly not found in men. It is already present in Konstanze ofThe Abduction from the Seraglio, in her virtuous aria "Marten aller Arten", as well as in the stony resistance that Fiordiligi stages in "Come scoglio…". Before, of course, the characters of Elvira, Susanna or the Countess are admirable; who, even at the moment of showing herself fragile, in an aria as emotional as "Where are the beautiful moments…", it recomposes itself to culminate it with an inspired ardor, according to a structurepiano-fortethat reappears elsewhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuW8HZc3SS4
Through song, Mozart demonstrates that the heroine knows herself to be the owner of what Kant, at that time, had considered most valuable: a moral integrity free from any pretense of external control, which speaks of the autonomy of one's own ---and truly inalienable--- will, insofar as it overcomes the interference of the obstacles of human nature. The male cast, on the other hand, repeatedly falls victim to affections. Even Figaro, so astute and seemingly sensitive ---he is, compared to others--- manifests his irrationality in the aria "Aprite un po' quegli' occhi". Believing himself deceived, he feels legitimized to aggressively disqualify the female gender, as if doing a favor to the rest of men. And it is that, in reality, he is being deceived: he deceives himself about Susanna's deception, by not being able to fully guarantee her possession; by not being able to bear the idea that she, like no one else, is truly possessible.
In Così fan tutte, the last collaboration with Mozart, Da Ponte impeccably balances the relationships between characters. Not only are the male protagonists encouraged to create an exotic alter ego, who is to seduce the beloved of the other, but, for the deception to work, Don Alfonso counts on the collaboration of Despina, one of those characters with whom Mozart ---as he had already done through Figaro--- makes a claim for the rights of the servant classes, and also of gender. Despina will point out that a woman is free to enjoy herself at any time and with whomever she wishes, exactly like men ---whom she calls an "indiscreet race"-, which ratifies the corrective to the tendentious title. That Mozart, himself a victim of class discrimination, is on her side is something that becomes clear from her first intervention, when Despina brings hot chocolate to the ladies and, without them seeing her, dares to taste it, exclaiming ---overwhelmed by the delight inaccessible to her condition: "is my mouth not perhaps like yours?".
CODA
But, returning to the question of eros ---the theme that intertwines plots and specularly links the characters of the three operas that can be enjoyed at the Liceu--- it must be said that Cosí fan tutte is as amusing as it is unsettling (can one love someone who is not "a character"?), and as rich in stereotypes as it is mercilessly critical. The falsely innocent farce that men devise to test their women ---who will deceive them, precisely, by being deceived themselves--- inflicts an even deeper wound on the masculine need for certainty, opening their eyes ---as Figaro wanted--- and positioning them before the universal and uncontrollable truth of loving affection: that by its nature it is volatile and can take unforeseen paths, all the more so when one believes oneself alien to its fluctuating reality, and willingly deceives oneself.
The subtitle of the work ---"the school for lovers"--- is more eloquent than the main title, insofar as it does not distinguish between genders, announcing the representation of an erotic paideia that culminates the journey begun in the previous operas, as distinct voyages that make up the same ---and always different--- journey. There is no totally happy ending, nor a return to amorous naivety, but there is the possibility of overcoming through the transformative action of forgiveness, when it proves genuine. The painful recognition of being lost becomes a turning point for rediscovering oneself, in a freer way of life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6dj0IAz9NU