COSI FAN TUTE: Mozartian Madness

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS!

Welcome to the Farce Zone.  Here, logic is insane and people are foolish to the point of absolute hilarity.  Please leave your 21st Century ideas at the door; you won't be needing them.  

Last Wednesday was the rebroadcast of Mozart's farcical comedy Cosi Fan Tutte (Thus Do They All).  The title is a reference to the idea that all women are fickle.  Naturally, this comes into direct conflict with our hyper-sensitive culture today.  But in a farce that doesn't really matter.  In a farce, everyone's behavior is overblown, exaggerated, and overall just plain silly.  In real life, we want to smack someone who plays a joke on their sweetheart just to see what happens.  But a farce turns that kind behavior into something utterly ridiculous and thus we can genuinely be amused by it.  I pity the fool who cannot laugh at something like that.  

The premise is exceedingly ridiculous, so I will be very breif about it.  Two young officers, Ferrando and Guglielmo, make a bet with their cynical friend Don Alfonso to see see whether or not his assertion that all women are fickle is true.  They pretend to go off to war and return in disguise as wealthy Albanians and begin to seduce each other's fiance.  The two women, sisters Fiordeligi and Dorabella, are at first very much resistant to the men's charms.  But with the interference of the cynical Don Alfonso and the women's naughty maidservant Despina, both Fiordeligi and Dorabella begin to weaken.  Dorabella is the first to fall; and then Fiordeligi gives in.  Not too long afterward the two young officers come back and pretend to be offended, and then reveal their prank.  Don Alfonso tells everyone to laugh it off.  

There was one performance that really stood out to me.  I has seen Danielle de Niese before in the roles of Susanna and Ariel in Le Nozze di Figaro and The Enchanted Island respectively.  This was my third time seeing her live.  She played Despina as being very naughty; actually Despina came off as being almost a slut.  That's not surprising given the fact the typical Mozart soubrette soprano is generally a very sassy young girl.  And why are people worried about the part about all women being fickle when Despina is saying the same thing about all men?  

This is a must-see for anyone interested in the opera.