30
PARTISAN REVIEW
"convention" that makes sense both of the action, on whatever level
or levels, and also of the remarkable expressivity of some of the music.
Nothing is settled by concluding that Da Ponte gave Mozart a
frivolous book, whereupon Mozart took parts of it seriously, and on
them lavished beautiful music. You can say the same of
Figaro
and
Don Giovanni;
the real question
is,
what is the result of this strange
blend? The artistic nature and the degree of success of the two earlier
operas are quite different from those of
COSt
fan tutte.
Most fundamentally, its plane of reality differs from that of
Figaro
and
Don Giovanni
on the one hand, and that of
The Magic
Flute
on the other. Mozart and Da Ponte had unresolved differences
about it; the confusion is
in
the piece as well as
in
the minds of the
audience. Professor Dent, in
his
admirable, basic book
Mozart's
Operas,
does not dispel confusion by asserting that the four lovers are
puppets expressing an amazingly wide range of emotions. They are
certainly silly, dear children, and easily led by the nose, but their
actions and feelings are logical, true, and dramatically arresting; this
would seem enough for us to grant them the courtesy of the usual
metaphor and consider them "rear people" rather than marionettes.
"Don Alfonso so obviously pulls all the strings that one begins to
wonder if he is not really Don Lorenzo or Don Wolfgango."
It
is
important, though, to distinguish the roles of these three manipulators.
Don Alfonso is the clearest of them, and the least aware of any
essential problems. He explains his attitude unmistakably when he
recites an
oUava
to the boys as a moral sentence, near the end. This
piece comes as close to an aria as anything that Don Alfonso sings
and incorporates the title of our opera, together with music that had
already figured
in
the Overture:
Everyone censures women; I excuse them
If every minute fresh love seems to start.
Some say it's habit, others vice; say 1-
The necessary instinct of the heart.
Deluded lover, do not place the blame
On someone else's. but on your own part;
For women young and old, and fair and foul
(Now come repeat with me) THUS DO THEY ALL!
