Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

In dit tweede deel van de reeks Operatheek verkent musicologe Lalina Goddard Così fan tutte, de beroemde komische opera van Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart en librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. Al sinds het begin verhit Così de gemoederen omdat Da Ponte’s immorele en zelfs misogyne tekst niet te rijmen zou vallen met Mozarts verheven muziek. Achtereenvolgens duikt dit boekje in de literaire rijkdom van het libretto en de speelse ironie van de compositie die onder het oppervlak schuilgaan. Lalina Goddard zoekt hierbij antwoorden op de prangende vragen rond gender en vrouwonvriendelijkheid in deze opera. Met deze handige luistergids neemt ze de nieuwsgierige lezer en luisteraar mee langs de vernuftigste muzikale vondsten en literaire knipogen.

Contessa perdono! Mozartian sexual betrayal and forgiveness

The dramatic and musical climax of 'The Marriage of Figaro', perhaps Mozart’s operatic masterpiece, is famously marked by the unexpected forgiveness of the Count by the Countess, whom the count has infamously refused to forgive earlier in the opera. This article will explore the musical and psychological ramifications of forgiveness and the refusal to forgive within couple relationships, not only in this opera but also in two other great Mozart operas, 'Don Giovanni' and 'Così fan tutte', in which issues around forgiveness are also implicitly central. It will be argued that Mozart’s very differing and contrasting realisations of this core human and couple dynamic through his unique dramatic, verbal, and musical talents may partially account for the reputation of these operas for depth and universality.

O século XVIII é mais avançado que o XXI: uma experiência de autoetnografia

Este artigo pretende fazer uma autoetnografia cultural negativa de uma ida ao cinema para assistir à ópera Cosi fan tutte (1789), de Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, no Shopping Galleria, em Campinas. A produção foi realizada musicalmente por Philippe Jordan e coreograficamente por Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker para a orquestra da Opéra National de Paris, lançada na Europa em 2017 e que chega ao Brasil no primeiro semestre de 2018, graças ao Festival Ópera na Tela. Tendo em vista as contradições da relação entre ópera e cinema e como essas tensões se intensificam quando transferidas do eixo Europa e EUA para países de modernização tardia, este estudo autoetnográfico da ida à ópera pretende fazer uma crítica à ideia de uma noção de tempo como progressão abstrata e homogênea.

Is Don Giovanni Evil?

Although Mozart’s librettist for Don Giovanni, Lorenzo Da Ponte, explicitly invoked Dante’s Inferno as a source of his inspiration, both text and music tell a much more ambivalent story. The parts of the action familiar to its first audiences (the night-time escape and duel, the country maid, the statue of the dead Commander coming to dinner) were complicated by Don Giovanni’s persuasive, even heroic music and the hyper-dramatic self-justifications by his would-be conquests. Chronicling the Don’s last day, the opera focuses on his behaviors both nonchalant and impassioned as well as the inability of patriarchal norms and punishments to contain him. The opening scene, the episodic introduction of the women, and the serenade in Act II are seen here as telling examples of Mozart and Da Ponte’s desire—as in their other two collaborations, Le nozze di Figaro and Così fan tutte—to accommodate a serious moral tale to the poignant delights of comic opera. They reveal a vision of the Don beyond good and evil.