Mozart: The Master Surveyor of Man; Part Five

This is part five of five, and the last one, where we will cover the opera Così fan tutte. This will be a long one, both in text and in videos to watch. I invite you to come back to finish it if it is too much in one setting. 

This opera has grown on me very much; if I once thought that Don Giovanni was Mozart's greatest opera, I am today more torn. The beginning and ending of Don Giovanni always captivates me. It is hard to beat. And Le nozze di Figaro is so delightful and funny, but Così fan tutte has this great singing, and shows so very real man’s travel from innocence to fall. That is what we are going to speak on in this last piece. And this opera very much concludes what Scripture testifies, when Jeremiah says: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). You can see the folly of man’s saying, just follow your heart, be true to your heart, and all will be well. When a depraved man follows his heart only desperation and folly, depravity and fall into sin will follow, nothing is more true because the heart is deceitful, and wicked, who can know it or understand it? Così fan tutte makes this obvious.

Let us first start to talk a little about the opera Così fan tutte which in many ways are different than Don Giovanni and Le nozze di Figaro. Mozart was the master of creating and setting up vocal structures that no one else is able too (except Handel who was a master at everything vocal. And also Bach, but he did not write any operas). I am no opera expert, I have not heard all operas, but I have heard the most famous of Puccini, Verdi, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, and Mozart. No one builds music and vocal structures like Mozart. He is the master in structure building of both music and vocals in a manner that is so beautiful and perfect, I mean this in opposition to building arias for one person, that they all do with great splendor. This is most apparent in his third da Ponte opera, Così fan tutte, where they sing one, two, three, four, five or six persons together, and it is absolutely beautiful. You can, of course find, like in for example Verdi’s La Traviata: "Alfredo, Alfredo di questo core," a great and magnificent vocal structure and chorus. But it is not like Così, which is so perfect and beautiful in a different way. You must hear it to understand. 

And Mozart is all about dialogue, and love. You find spoken dialogue, and you find sung dialogue; Mozart is building stories, he is building something coherent, he is building perfection, and he builds it through dialogue: in music, in speaking, and in singing, and he does it with such care, and poise, everything belong together, every note, every word, it fits perfectly. This is most apparent in his opera Così fan tutte.

Who can understand the sheer beauty of Mozart’s music? I believe you must experience it to understand its inherent beauty. The story of Così fan tutte is in a way ridiculous; so maybe was Mozart and da Ponte trying to convey something else? In it you have six persons. Two couples: Ferrando and Dorabella, Guglielmo and Fiordiligi, and Don Alfonso, who is a friend of the men, and Despina, the women’s maid. The Opera depicts 24 hours of these persons’ lives. It will be easier to view much of what is happening through some video clips. 

Many operas have rather meaningless stories. I love for example many of Handel's operas but not many are able to touch my soul with its story. In these cases it is only about the music and the singing. But with Mozart's da Ponte operas it is very different, he has a story to tell, a great story. Therefore will this write up be about the story, about the dialogue, and we will either read the dialogue of listening to it. I hope that will be a relevant strategy. Because the greatness of it resides both in the story and in the music and in the singing. 

The opera starts with Ferrando and Guglielmo saying that their lovers are incapable of deceit and unfaithfulness. Ferrando says: “My Dorabella is incapable of deceit. Heaven made her as faithful as she is beautiful.” Guglielmo states: “My Fiordiligi could never betray me! I know her constancy equals her beauty.” Don Alfonso states contrary: “And you expect to find fidelity in women? How delightfully naive! … a faithful woman has never existed and never will!” So they foolishly make a bet. Don Alfonso promises that he will make certain to them that their fiancés are like all other women, which means that they are unfaithful, and they promise to do all that Don Alfonso commands and to not tell them about it.

Then the scene is moved to the two women who are sisters, and they sing about their love for their fiancés, and while they are doing that Don Alfonso comes with tears in his eyes, and they are wondering why. Don Alfonso is a great actor, and he cryingly tells the sisters that their fiancés are called to the battlefield, and they are only allowed to take a quick farewell. Let us view Don Alfonso's initial and cunning trickery on the unsuspecting young women from Teatro Real in Madrid, 2013 (Anett Fritsch, Paola Gardina, Juan Francisco Gatell, Andreas Wolf, Kerstin Avemo, William Schimell).

Don Alfonso knows exactly what he is doing. How ever did he come to this depraved  and evil understanding and knowledge of the heart? So the men says farewell, going to the battlefield where they might die or return from maimed. It is all about duplicity, creating anxiety, and trying to manifest strong overwhelming feelings within the hearts of them. But you can also see how the men are very convinced that the women will stay faithful to them. Little do they know. None of them know anything about the human heart. And when the men have sailed away they sing this beautifully in three voices (Teatro Real; I have this video for its sheer beauty, not for the story, if you want to skip it).

You see how shrewd Don Alfonso is in manipulating the young women. The sisters are devastated, but when their maid Despina comes, she teaches them a lesson. Her view of man and love are as following:

Despina: “My lady Dorabella, my lady Fiordiligi, tell me what has happened!"
Dorabella: “Oh, horrible misfortune!”
Despina: “Tell me at once!”
Fiordiligi: “Our lovers have left Napes”
Despina: “That’s all. They’ll come back.”
Dorabella: “Who knows?”
Despina: “What do you mean? Where have they gone?”
Dorabella: “To the battlefield.”
Despina: “So much the better for them; you’ll see them next covered with laurels! But let’s not speak of that; they’re still alive, and they’ll be alive when they come back; and rather than wasting your time in idle tears, you must think of amusing yourselves.”
Fiordiligi: “Amusing ourselves?”
Despina: “Certainly! And, more than that, you must make love to others, just as your dear lovers are doing at the front!”
Dorabella: “Don’t cast aspersions on those beautiful, faithful souls; they are veritable models of fidelity.”
Despina: “Come, now-let’s not tell each other fairy tales!”

And then sings Despina about that there exist no fidelity in men, in soldiers. One could believe that she was the daughter of Don Alfonso, and you could easily believe that she was born in the 21st century and not in the 18th. She ends her aria in this way: “My ladies, men are evil and indiscreet; let’s pay them in their own coins-let’s make love for convenience and vanity, just as they do!" 

And now starts the real deception, which is both cruel and evil. Don Alfonso starts with bribing Despina who promises to help him in introducing to the sisters the men who are now in disguise. Unto the two sisters these are two unknown men that are threatening their love and fidelity. This is from Glyndebourne 2006 (Miah Persson, Anke Vondung, Topi Lehtipuu, Luca Pisaroni, Nicolas Riveno, Ainhoa Garmendia; I believe that the Glyndebourne Così fan tutte is the greatest up to this day).

The sisters are still faithful. And as we initially could see in the first clip, so are the two men still very certain that their fiancés will continue to be that. They do not understand the depravity of man, and they do not understand how temptations are going to come at them both from the outside, through Despina and Don Alfonso who are very knowledgeable in the deceitfulness of the human heart, and through temptations from within, with temptation as feelings and desires and lusts that they do not throw out but let live in their hearts and minds. Nothing is more dangerous than to dwell on sinful thoughts and fantasies, and to let them live and roam freely in our minds. It will, sooner or later, lead to a fall. And remember, all sins are not equal, there are different sins. We all sin, and we will continue to sin until we be glorified in our heavenly home, but the sins I am talking about John Owen called for soul-destroying sins.

Sin not only strives, acts, rebels, troubles, and disturbs us, but if it is left alone, if it is not continually mortified, it will produce great, cursed, scandalous, soul-destroying sins. The apostle tells us what the works and the fruits of sin are. 'The works of the flesh are apparent: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, jealousy, anger, strife, sedition, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, carousing, etc.' You know what it did in David and many others. Sin always aims at the extreme. If it had its way, every time it rises up to tempt or entice, it would go out to the most extreme sin of that kind. If it could, every unclean thought or glance would become adultery. Every covetous desire would become oppression. If it were allowed its own reign, every thought of unbelief would become atheism. Men may reach a point, where sin is so unrestrained, that it no longer stings their conscience. The most outrageous sin no longer seems scandalous. If every impulse of lust  were satisfied, it would reach the height of villainy. Sin is like the grave that is never satisfied (Mortification of Sin).

Soul-destroying sins are just that: soul destroying. They are incredible dangerous.  But as John Owen says, the real danger is in not mortifying these sins, daily. Because even small sins can become deadly and soul-destroying. Never let any of them take resident in your heart. We have to mortify them daily. And we will see this later, how the sisters handle this in two different ways, but in the end both of them succumb to the temptations. Dorabella gives in quickly and Fiordiligi tries so hard. It is incredible how da Ponte and Mozart portrait this inner conflict with the women. It is very insightful. 

Fiordiligi who is the most interesting to follow since she initially resists with ferocity the unknown men that has invaded their lives. She sings not knowing what will happen later:

Audacious intruders, leave this house immediately! … Spare our hearts, our ears, and our affections! It is vain for you or anyone else to attempt to seduce our souls! We shall keep the faith that we have pledged to our dear lovers unti the hour of our death, in spite of all the world, and fate’s adversity. I stand firm as a rock against all winds and tempests! My soul will always be strong in faith and in love. My constancy consoles my grief, and only death can change my heart’s affection. You, ungrateful creatures, must respect my example of fidelity-let it extinguish your false audacious hopes! 

Fiordiligi is a very interesting character just as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni. So the men are happy since their betrothed are faithful, and they think they have won the bet. But Don Alfonso and Despina has still time to sway all of it. And they promise to do as Don Alfonso bids and then the finale of Act 1 arrives which is really great. We will watch it in full even if it is rather long. And you will see how Don Alfonso and Despina are masters at deception and to manipulate situations and feelings. Beware always of such persons around you.

Listen first to their dialogue how they are to devise this great temptation:

Don Alfonso: “It’s quite absurd! There are so few constant women in this world, and here are two of them!  It can’t be.”  
He asks Despina where her mistresses are.
Despina: “The poor fools are standing in the garden bewailing the loss of their lovers to the breezes and the mosquitos.”  
Don Alfonso: “And how do you think this will end? Can we hope they’ll come to their senses?”  
Despina: “Well, I would; where they weep, I'd laugh.  To choke with despair because a lover goes away!  Have you ever seen such folly!  If one goes, take two others.”  
Don Alfonso: “Well said! that’s sense.”
Don Alfonso to himself: “I’d better compliment her.”  
Despina: “It’s a law of nature, and not erely sense. What is love? Pleasure, convenience, taste,  
Enjoyment, amusement, pastime, fun, it's no longer love if it becomes a burden and instead of pleasure brings pain and torment.” 
Don Alfonso: “But meanwhile our sillies ...”  
Despina: “They'll do what we say. It’s good that they should know they're loved by them.”  
Don Alfonso: “They know it.”  
Despina: “Then they’ll readmit them, they'll spin the usual tale, and devil take the hindmost!”  
Don Alfonso: “But how can you bring them back now they've gone, and make these tiger cats of yours listen to them again and let themselves be tempted?”  
Despina: “Leave me the bother of running the show. When Despina runs something, it can't fail: I've already led a thousand men by the nose: I should know how to manage two women. Are your two whiskered monsieurs rich?”  
Don Alfonso: “Rolling in it.”  
Despina: “Where are they? 
Don Alfonso: “In the street, waiting for me.”  
Despina: “Then off you go and bring them to me here by the little door; I’ll wait for you in my room.  
If you'll do all I tell you, before tomorrow your friends will win the day: they'll have their way, and I’ll have the glory.”

Despina is an evil woman, a real Jezebel. She should heed the saying of the LORD: "As they increased, so they sinned against me: therefore will I change their glory into shame" (Hosea 4:7). Let us watch the end of Act 1 from Salzburg 2015 (Malin Hartelius, Marie-Claude Chappuis, Luca Pisaroni, Martin Mitterrutzner, Martina Jankova, Gerald Finley).

Remember that these women in fact are girls, around fifteen years old, and they are being duped and manipulated by Don Alfonso and Despina in a very vicious way, there is manipulation from start to end. And the men play along not knowing any better, and think it is a fun game, which they later will regret in despair. The men asks themselves if the women's pity now will turn to love? The women think that the men have been saved from certain death. The finale of Act 1 is where the sisters constancy starts to falter. Something enters into their mind, and they let it live freely within. Fiordiligi still stands tall, but Dorabella does not. I believe that she has made her choice, she only needs a little push which Despina gladly will provide. 

In the beginning of Act 2 Despina continues with her manipulation:

Despina: “Well, you are certainly two very strange girls!”
Fiordiligi: “For goodness’ sake, what do you expect of us?”
Despina: “For myself-nothing.”
Fiordiligi: “For whom, then?”
Despina: “For you!”
Dorabella: “For us?”
Despina: “Yes, for you. Are you women or not?”
Fiordiligi: “Isn’t that quite evident?”
Despina: “Well, if you were women, you must behave like women!”
Dorabella: “Which means?”
Despina: “You must realize that love should not be serious. Never reject a chance to have some fun! There are times when you must be changeable and time when you must be constant. You must know how to flirt gracefully, always avoding the common disgrace of those who trust in men. In short, you must know how to have your cake and eat at the same time.”

Despina is truly horrible in how she deceives these two young women. Already at fifteen a girl must know what is good and what is bad, how to lie to fascinate a lover, how to feign laughter and tears, and how to invent plausible excuses, and she must be able to give hope to all men. She really sounds like person from our century. But our Lord warned these kinds of people: “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!” (Matthew 18:6-7). 

The sisters have listened to Despina, and something new has made its home in their hearts:

Fiordiligi: “Sister, what do you say?”
Dorabella: “I’m amazed at that girl’s diabolical cynicism!”
Fiordiligi: “I think she is crazy. Does she believe that we’ll follow her advice?”
Dorabella: “Certainly not-if you undertake to stop the whole business.”
Fiodiligi: “I estimate it at its true value. And our devotion?”
Dorabella: “We’re still devoted. To amuse oneself a little and not to die of melancholy is not the same as breaking one’s faith, my dear sister”
Fiordiligi: “There is some truth in that.”
Dorabella: “Well, then? Let’s understand each other-which gentleman is your choice?”
Fiordiligi: “You decide it, sister.”
Dorabella: “I have decided! I’ll take that sweet dark one; he seems more vivacious to me.”
Fiordiligi: “And I will laugh and joke with the nice little blond one.”

Here happens two things. They have let in compromise in their hearts. It cannot be so bad to have a little fun? It means nothing. O how little they know. And they have fallen for the wrong “man” at this point. Dorabella for Fiordiligi’s Guglielmo while Fiordiligi has fallen for Dorabella’s Ferrando. 

In the next scene enters Don Alfonso with the two men and Fiordiligi goes for a walk with Ferrando while Guglielmo stays with Dorabella, and he spares no time. What I call the fall of Dorabella comes from Salzburg.

Dorabella has fallen here, and she sees no way back. She do not even fight it. I do not even think that she wants to go back. She is that kind of person. It is sad to watch. Dorabella is not the only woman in Mozart's world of opera that lacks constancy and faithfulness, in the opera Don Giovanni we also have Zerlina, who is even worse than Dorabella. 

With Fiordiligi it is different, let us watch it from Glyndebourne.

What a difference from Dorabella. Listen instead on how Fiordiligi first fights of Ferrando, then she fights within herself with all these feelings that arises from her heart. She knows that it is so wrong. Miah Persson is glorious in portraying Fiordiligis' inner turmoil. You can both see it and hear it listening to her. How she tries to stay strong, to tell herself the truths, when she tries to find a way out, and a strategy to be faithful to her fiancé. She is tortured by what she feels within and what she knows is true. She knows that she is on the broad road and she fights it with ferocity, but still she somehow lets it live in her heart, and that will also cause her to fall. She sings: "I'm burning, but not with the fire of a virtuous love. It is torment, sorrow, remorse, regret, inconstancy, falsehood... and betrayal." And she asks for forgiveness but she does not throw it out completely. We have to be very decisive in these kinds of situations, and show no mercy to these inner temptations. And Mozart portrays this so masterfully; I am at a loss for words listening to it. She seems to think in the end of her aria that she now has won over herself. Sadly she is wrong in this assumption. What says Scripture: "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18).      

Then comes Ferrando to Guglielmo and says that they have won the bet since Fiordiligi has rejected him, and he believes of course that his Dorabella has done the same thing, which we know is not true. And when he finds out about her betrayal, he is completely devastated. And then comes Don Alfonso, and he has no comfort to give 

Don Alfonso: “Well! That’s fidelity for you!”
Ferrando: “Leave me alone; you’re the cause of all my misery!”
Don Alfonso: “If you’ll be calm, your peace will be restored. Listen; Fiordiligi has proved herself true to Guglielmo, while Dorabella was unfaithful to you.”
Ferrando: “To my shame.”
Giglielmo: “Dear friend, we must always make allowances in everything. Do you think a woman could ever fail a Guglielmo? Meanwhile, I’d like my fifty gold peacses.”
Don Alfonso: “Gladly. But before paying, I want to make one more test. Come along; I hope to show you how unwise it is to count your chickens before they’re hatched!”

After this comes an important dialogue between the women.

Despina: “No I see that you’re really behaving as a woman should"!”
Dorabella: “I couldn’t resist him, Despina.”
Despina: “Good heavens, we women have so little chance to amuse ourselves that we must take it as it comes. But here’e your sister. What afrown!”
Fiordiligi: “Little wretch, it’s your fault that I find myself in this situation. I don’t understand how aheart can change in a single day!”
Dorabella: “What a silly question; we’re women! How was your stroll?”
Fiordiligi: “I know how to resist temptation!”
Dorabella: “Believe me, sister, you’d do better to yield!”

Fiordiligi does not know how to get away from her conflicting heart. Dorabella has already decided. And Fiordiligi is sad because she has told her sister and Despina about her conflicting feelings, that she loves Guglielmo and, at the same time, this new man (which is Ferrando), and they will certainly tell him, which will make him even bolder in his pursuit of her, and she understands that she cannot resist such a temptation. She instead gets the idea to go to the battlefield to find Guglielmo, and to save her heart and faithfulness, and she asks Despina to get his uniform, and she clothes herself in it, and then she sings: "Fra gli amplessi, in pochi istanti," which, I believe, is Mozart’s most beautiful duet, even if it portrays a fall into a soul-destroying sin; take heed everyone. I have never heard anything more beautiful, and you can understand that Fiordiligi who has not fled in time cannot stand against this temptation. Listen to it, and watch it, it is masterful, it is sung dialogue (Glyndebourne). 

And never put yourself in a situation like this where you most assuredly will fall. 

And what happened to Ferrando? Does he love Fiordiligi or is revenge his only goal? I do not know. Because after this all four are unhappy. And Don Alfonso says about women:

Everyone condemns women for being so changeable, but I excuse them for it. Others call it a custom or a vice, but to me it seems a necessity of the heart. The lover who at the end finds himself deceived should blame only his own folly; for the young, the old, the beautiful, even the ugly-repeat this now with me: They all do it! ('Così fan tutte').

We will not really stay any longer with the opera because I have made my point here. But they decide to marry and during the marriage they hear that their fiancés are coming back, and they must hide the men. And when the men, now without disguise, find the marriage contracts they wonder what it is. For the interested the conclusion from Glyndebourne.

I know that this was very long, and much to both read and to watch. But no other opera of Mozart shows temptation in this clear way in two different individuals, and how we through it can follow how one of them fall very quickly, and the other falls much later; and Mozart and da Ponte let us understand how she has allowed these conflicting feeling reside within her instead of dealing with them decisively, which we must do. Mozart makes all of this clear in this opera. So if the story itself is ludicrous, is its message not: it is dangerous to harbor and to allow temptations to live freely within us. Here are the girls tempted from the outside by the much older and shrewder Don Alfonso and Despina, and from within, by their own desires and lusts. And James makes this clear as day, how dangerous it is to be drawn away by one's own lusts. Because it will always bring about death and destruction. 

Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren (James 1:13-16).

I hope this has been a learning read. I know how easy it is to compromise to get what you want, but it is a very dangerous way to travel on. And I hope that every time you listen or watch this opera that you remember this wisdom. Never compromise with sin, never let sinful thoughts dwell within your heart, but repudiate them at once and throw them out. And always be nigh unto the Lord Jesus Christ and his Word, which is able to save you, and come to him and confess all your sins that he may forgive and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

In this reading, we have watched videos of Così fan tutte from Teatro Real from 2013, which you may find here. And from Glyndebourne 2006, which you may find here. The DVD/Blu-ray from Salzburg 2015 seems sold out everywhere.