MOZART AS DRAMATIST
33
plane of reality in
COSt
fan tutte.
Obviously, musical parallelism was
a convenience to Mozart; but I am sure that he adopted it primarily
in order to show the lovers less as serious individuals than as anony–
mous representatives of their sexes. That is all they are to Don Al–
fonso. Anonymous representatives can have only conventional feel–
ings, and such feelings, as Mozart knew, are all of about the same
quality. So the paleness, the sameness, and the unintelligence which
we feel
in
COSt
fan tutte
are perfectly appropriate dramatically; and
before dismissing the convention as uninteresting, we must consider
Mozart's rich modulation of it in the second act. The full-blooded real–
ism of
Figaro
would have been as wrong here as in
T he Magic Flute
or
Idomeneo .
Mozart's treatment of the arias was also in accord with
Da Ponte's artificial comedy, at first. These characters cannot gauge
their emotions; in the arias of Act I, the girls' feelings are thoroughly
parodied.
But as the libretto allows the characters to slip out of their neu–
trality, Mozart with an excellent sense of drama fires their indi–
vidualities. Convention veils these people in the company of their
sisters or companions or original lovers, whom we cannot take seri–
ously; in later soliloquies, though, and most particularly in the two
seduction duets, some of the veils begin to drop. This is so even with
Dorabella, whose main function is to serve as a shallow foil for Fior–
diligi. Her exquisite Duet with Guglielmo seems frigidly contained,
with its heart- and locket-symbolism. But when he touches her, there
is a sudden flash of feeling in a modulatory passage, and in the re–
capitulation (or resolution to this tiny drama) the divided phrases
are as eloquent as the tremulous new orchestral figure.
As
for Fior–
diligi, the more solemn sister, we cannot shake off the impression of
sorrow in her second aria,
"Per pietd/'
for all its preposterousness; and
her Duet with Ferrando has always been understood as the expressive
center of the opera, as it is the dramatic center. No theory of
COSt
fan tutte
will do that does not take full measure of this wonderful
piece. Fiordiligi is closer to emotional truth here than anyone any–
where else in the play.
And what of Ferrando in the duet? He has just sung of his
fidelity to Dorabella in the
cavatina "Tradito, schernito,"
but Mozart
never works on a double standard, and certainly means to tease
him
