Cosi Fan Tutte - the ending?

Started by hornteacher, January 25, 2009, 07:03:58 PM

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hornteacher

January 25, 2009, 07:03:58 PM
I've read some musicologist's reviews on Cosi that put forth a theory that the original couples were mis-matched, and that after the finale the couples swap pairings and marry the one they were not engaged to at the beginning of the opera.  The logic behind this theory is that the Dorabella/Guglielmo and Fiordiligi/Ferrando pairings were more compatible, and it took Don Alfonso's lesson to show them this.  Dr. Greenberg makes a good case for this scenario in his Teaching Company lectures on Cosi.

Has anyone here thought about this before?  Does it change the message/moral of the story?

Dancing Divertimentian

#1
January 25, 2009, 08:34:12 PM
I think the story stands as is. I'm aware in the current PC climate the story makes some uneasy: flighty women easily manipulated by the jiggling of emotions, etc...

But when it comes down to it, the women don't really need any special pleading for their actions. They're not married, after all. Only engaged. Which leaves the door wide open for whatever may happen. So they go for it. Seems sensible enough.

And the men, well, they seem no worse for the wear.
Veit Bach-a baker who found his greatest pleasure in a little cittern which he took with him even into the mill and played while the grinding was going on. In this way he had a chance to have the rhythm drilled into him. And this was the beginning of a musical inclination in his descendants. JS Bach

zamyrabyrd

#2
February 12, 2009, 08:40:45 PM
Quote from: donwyn on January 25, 2009, 08:34:12 PM
I think the story stands as is. I'm aware in the current PC climate the story makes some uneasy: flighty women easily manipulated by the jiggling of emotions, etc...


Quite a few operas, in particular from the early 19th century (Lucia, Sonnambula, Puritani, even Medea) are about allegedly unstable women, and 20th century films from the 30's to early 50's.
Could there be a pattern somewhere?  ???

ZB
"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one."

― Charles MacKay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

karlhenning

#3
February 13, 2009, 04:57:40 AM
Allegations of instability. Where would opera be without 'em? Where would opera be without 'em?
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