Wolfgang A. Mozart Così fan tutte
ossia La scuola degli amanti
Dramma giocoso in two acts, K. 588 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
Libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749–1838)
Renewal
In Italian with German and English surtitles
Length of performance: approx. 3 hours and 35 minutes.
PREMIERE
- 07 August 2011, 15:00
- 15 August 2011, 19:00
- 19 August 2011, 19:00
- 21 August 2011, 19:00
- 26 August 2011, 15:00
Print programme (PDF)
Claus Guth has taken advantage of the revivals of the three Da Ponte operas by Mozart since 2006 to develop his productions continuously. The new edition of Così fan tutte as part of the performance of all three of Mozart’s Da Ponte operas in one season has now led him to revise his 2009 work very extensively, so that one might actually call it a new production.
Taking Mozart’s three Da Ponte operas as a “trilogy of dis-illusionment”, Così fan tutte is the climax of such dis-illusionment. This stage work – in various ways, Mozart’s most radical – is not so much a “School of Lovers” than a continuous vivisection of hearts. The field of tension which opens here between love and passion, security and self-negation, faithfulness and betrayal, mercilessly throws two couples back upon their own devices. Hoping for eternal faithfulness and longing at the same time to betray it, they get lost in an emotional chaos which leads to a farewell to false security, to a questioning of the relation between truth and reality. Don Alfonso – a kind of fallen angel, full of destructive energy – is a driven character, with an immense knowledge about people’s innate functioning. He is the guardian of the gate to the subconscious, who opens the sluices and leads the figures into depths of consciousness unfathomable before. Together with Despina, he aims to unmask all their life-sustaining illusions. This clear gaze alights upon an abyss of human relationships which seems to transcend the limitations of the dramma giocoso by far.
Andri Hardmeier