In the wise words of the Beloved Flatmate, "Gender in opera is never NOT problematic." In addition to recording
and libretto perusal, I prepared for last night's Opera Outing by looking through essays with the trained scholar in me chanting "Problematize! problematize!" and some other part of me saying "...Happy Mozart?" Everyone starting with the New Grove Guide to Mozart
notes Così's history of being labeled as one of Mozart's "weaker" operas, and the problematic, clearly temporary nature of its "resolution." (For me, this doesn't seem terribly exceptional: I always want to know what happens after the curtain falls. If there's anyone left alive, that is.) An essay in Jean Starobinski's Enchantment: The Seductress in Opera
(did someone mention problematic gender in opera?) persuasively argues for the significance of the setting of Naples, noting the Neapolitan tradition of opera buffa with its stock characters, and the recurring sea and volcanoes of the libretto. I read about the Enlightenment and social and theatrical sensibilities (as well as the use of key structure to indicate falsehood and sincerity) in Andrew Steptoe's The Mozart-Da Ponte Operas. A chapter in Jessica Waldoff's Recognition in Mozart's Operas
(how could I not read a chapter entitled "Sense and Sensibility in Così fan tutte"?) argues that
and libretto perusal, I prepared for last night's Opera Outing by looking through essays with the trained scholar in me chanting "Problematize! problematize!" and some other part of me saying "...Happy Mozart?" Everyone starting with the New Grove Guide to Mozart notes Così's history of being labeled as one of Mozart's "weaker" operas, and the problematic, clearly temporary nature of its "resolution." (For me, this doesn't seem terribly exceptional: I always want to know what happens after the curtain falls. If there's anyone left alive, that is.) An essay in Jean Starobinski's Enchantment: The Seductress in Opera (did someone mention problematic gender in opera?) persuasively argues for the significance of the setting of Naples, noting the Neapolitan tradition of opera buffa with its stock characters, and the recurring sea and volcanoes of the libretto. I read about the Enlightenment and social and theatrical sensibilities (as well as the use of key structure to indicate falsehood and sincerity) in Andrew Steptoe's The Mozart-Da Ponte Operas. A chapter in Jessica Waldoff's Recognition in Mozart's Operas (how could I not read a chapter entitled "Sense and Sensibility in Così fan tutte"?) argues that"the opera's representation of sentimental experience [is forced] to divide against itself.... One has the sense that here as nowhere else in Mozart the lieto fine is a compromise with neither the characters nor the audience can be entirely comfortable. In its resistance to the reconciliation recognition brings, Così remains true to sentimental experience."It also remains problematic. I threw up my hands and went to the opera.
