so are we all
by Douglas Messerli
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (music), Lorenzo
da Ponte (libretto) Cosí fan tutte / LAOpera, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (the
performance I saw was on Sunday, October 2, 2011)
To be fair, the two young soldiers, Ferrando (Saimir Pirgu in the
production I saw) and Guglielmo (the handsome Ildebrando D'Arcangelo) begin the
opera singing endless praises of their loves, Fiordilgi (Aleksandra Kurzak) and
Dorabella (Ruxandra Donose). We immediately recognize their naiveté; and when I
say we, I think I can speak for the
whole of USA culture given that the current divorce rate is 50% which rises
substantially with second and third marriages. Although divorce may be caused
by many things other than unfaithfulness, it appears that, in the US at least,
Americans are fickle.
But the young men are easily challenged and persuaded into obedience to
their friend Don Alfonso (Lorenzo Regazzo), who, without much difficulty,
convinces them to lie to their sweethearts by pretending to go off to war, and
to themselves play cheats. After all, to dress up in the costumes of other men,
taking on their very different personalities and to court each other's fiancées
certainly suggests that they are willing to be guilty of behavior they do not hope
to find in their fiancés. Costumes are extremely important in Cosí fan tutte (and, of course, in the
whole of the commedia dell'arte
tradition, on which much of this opera is based); a slight costume change, an
attached moustache, a bit of acting immediately convinces others that a
familiar figure is someone else. Even women like the maid Despina can easily
dupe their employers, dressed like a man (she becomes in the opera both a
mesmerist doctor and a notary). In short, by donning costumes they temporarily become another person, and so too are
these young soldiers allowing themselves in their transformations to become
unfaithful seducers of the two sisters they proclaim to love.
The weaker of the two is obviously Dorabella who must be reminded consistently by her sister of the role she should play, and seems, quite early on, more distressed by being left alone than by the absence of Ferrando. Yet, despite her obvious interest in the two strange Albanians who suddenly appear in the sister's home, she also remains impervious throughout Act 1.
The Albanians, on the other hand, although declaring their love for the
two beauties, seem more interested in their own prowess than in the women they
are trying seduce. A great part of the humor of da Ponte's text lies in the
constant metaphors that point up their "endowments," Guglielmo, in
particular, pointing to his masculine attributes in "Non siate
ritrosi" ("Don't be shy").
In the production I saw this was reiterated by their attempt at suicide
by arsenic poisoning, wherein their dying bodies were laid out upon a chaise
longue, the two men almost on top of one another, hinting at a greater interest
in their own bodies than in the two of what they later relate as "the fair
sex." If nothing else, the scene suggested a long homoerotic embrace
between Ferrando and Guglielmo, made even more apparent when the women come to
revive them, all four crawling over and under one another.
Clearly they are not "playing fair," forcing the women to
brush against and touch them—often in somewhat lewd positions. These are
beautiful young people, all four of them, and like most young people, are
easily aroused.
The men, all ego, are furious with the obvious turn of events, but
fortunately Don Alfonso is wise enough to insist that they accept the natures
of their loved ones, without mentioning their own obvious failures and deceits.
"Marry them," he advices, and so, apparently they do, both
symbolically, with the fake notary marrying Dorabella and Fiordilgi to the
Albanians (each linked to the opposite of their lovers in their previous
existences) and then, again—at least in promise—to the miraculously returned
soldiers. What does it matter, truly, who marries whom, when a simple moustache
and coat can alter any personality. And, in that sense, Cosí fan tutte, is neither a celebration of faithfulness or even a
return to order, but a joyful tribute to sexually-inspired love.
Los Angeles, October 3, 2011
Reprinted from Green Integer Blog (October 2011).