Mozart: Cosi fan Tutte

The newest release in Opera d’Oro’s Grand Tier series is of a live performance at the Salzburg Festival in 1972, with an all-star cast in one of Mozart’s greatest operas. Although everyone agrees today that Cosi fan tutte is one of the best in the “second tier” of Mozart’s operas, it was so unpopular for over a century that it was not only ignored, but occasionally banned. Beethoven reportedly complained that the subject was not serious enough, and subsequent critics felt the story to be too immoral to produce on a public stage. Certainly Cosi exhibits a prevailing amorality, even by today’s permissive standards, although modern exception to the tale is more likely to be based on its portrayal of women, not men, as the usual deceivers in love.