Così fan tutte at The Estates Theatre

Così fan tutte is Mozart’s final and most intimate Italian comic opera. Lorenzo da Ponte’s libretto, replete with irony and extremely unflattering to (not only) women, was originally supposed to be set to music by Antonio Salieri, who renounced his intention in the very beginning. Mozart, however, amid Da Ponte’s extremely chamber-like story came into his element. Using a mere six characters, at the turn of 1790 he created a work so inspired musically that it would become one of the apices of his oeuvre. The opera Così fan tutte (or Thus Do They All), with the subheading The School for Lovers, is a black comedy exploring human flightiness, defencelessness against one’s own emotions, and the nature of love, which – fidelity or infidelity – is actually always absolutely “sincere”. The Slovak-Czech stage director Martin ?i?vák examines the timelessness of this “cruel joke” and in a symbolically circular space depicts a merry-go-round of amorous trifles.