9 The Figaro Revival and Così Fan Tutte

9 The Figaro Revival and Così fan tutte

The Italian Opera company’s theatrical season 1789–1790 at the

Burgtheater, when Le nozze di Figaro was revived and Così fan tutte, ossia
La scuola degli amanti premiered, nearly did not take place at all. With
attention on the war against the Turks, and an undesirably expensive
theatrical operation to underwrite, Emperor Joseph II wanted to close
down the company. Da Ponte put together a rescue package, with the
backing of fourteen aristocrats, dependent on being granted free access to
the Burgtheater. Initially unimpressed, Joseph ultimately agreed to the
arrangement. Now installed as impresario as well as librettist, Da Ponte
was responsible for recruiting singers and ensuring the books were balanced.
He coped with a fiscal crisis in mid-1789, turning finances around by the end
of the 1789–1790 season, and did not have it easy in other respects either.1
His pasticcio, L’ape musicale, which premiered on 27 February 1789 towards
the end of the previous season and involved a poet discussing arrangements
for a new opera with his niece, made an enemy of former close friend Salieri:
Da Ponte’s preference for the company’s new prima donna, Adriana
Ferrarese del Bene, with whom he was in love, over Cavalieri, Salieri’s
supposed amour, ‘[broke] the bonds of a friendship, which should have
been of our whole lives’.2 Louisa Villeneuve, the original Dorabella in Così,
took umbrage at her omission from the lucrative L’ape musicale, and con-
sequently became hostile.3 And Dorotea Bussani, the first Despina in Così,
was bluntly described by Da Ponte as ‘an Italian diva who, though
a ridiculous person of little merit, had by dint of facial contortions, clown’s
tricks, and perhaps by means more theatrical still, built up a great following
among cooks, barbers, lackeys, butlers and hostlers’.4 Francesco Bussani, the
original Don Alfonso in Così and Dorotea’s husband, was also identified as
an ‘adversary’: Bussani had acquired influence in casting decisions at the
Italian company, stoking rivalry between the two men.5
1
Woodfield, Cabals and Satires, Chapters 5 and 6, forthcoming. 2 Da Ponte, Memoirs, p. 186.
3
Bruce Alan Brown and John Rice, ‘Salieri’s Così fan tutte’, Cambridge Opera Journal, 8 (1996),
pp. 17–43, at 36–37.
410 4
Da Ponte, Memoirs, p. 185. 5 See Woodfield, Così fan tutte, pp. 80–81.

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Figaro Revival and Così fan tutte 411
Mozart’s first assignment of the 1789–1790 season was the revival of Le

nozze di Figaro. In early August he mentioned making alterations for the
imminent opera, which was first staged on 29 August and then another 28
times before completing its run in February 1791.6 The revival was
a notable success. Only Martín y Soler’s L’arbore di Diana bettered its
number of performances across 1789–1790 and 1790–1791 seasons.7
In addition, the average box-office yield from each performance in
1789–1790 was 218 florins 40 kreutzer, considerably above the average
for all operas in the same period and the fourth-highest grossing opera
overall.8 Ferrarese del Bene (Susanna), Cavalieri (Countess), and probably
Louise Villeneuve (Cherubino) took the principal female parts; Giovanni
Battista Brocchi, another new recruit, sang Figaro, but from time to time
handed over to the title role’s creator, Benucci.9 The identity of the Count is
unclear: Mandini, Albertarelli and Morella had all left the company by the
start of 1789–1790. Girolamo Cruciati, who debuted in Vienna on
28 April 1789, could have sung the Count, but left at the end of the season;
Santi Nencini probably took over on his arrival at the Burgtheater in
1790–1791.10 Zinzendorf, generally ambivalent about Mozart’s music,
enjoyed both the letter duet, ‘Che soave zeffiretto’, and the newly composed
rondò, ‘Al desio’ K. 577: ‘The duet for the two women and the rondeau for
La Ferrarese please, as always.’11 A revised version of L’ape musicale in
1791 included ‘Che soave zeffiretto’, a sign of its popularity during the
revival period.12 In a little-known review of Figaro in the Pressburger
Zeitung (2 September 1789), Ferrarese, ‘Al desio’, Mozart and Brocchi
were all praised: ‘The public were very happy with [Figaro]. . . . Madame
Ferrarese played the prima donna, and sang with her famous skill and art,
and showed it especially in a harmonically artificial Rondeau, where the
6
See MBA, vol. 3, p. 96; LMF, p. 933. For performance dates see Link, National Court Theatre,
pp. 145–163, and (including receipts for individual performances) Edge, ‘Mozart’s Reception in
Vienna, 1787–1791’, in Sadie (ed.), Essays on His Life and Music, p. 104.
7
See Edge ‘Mozart’s Reception in Vienna, 1787–1791’, Table 1, pp. 95–109.
8
Edge, ‘Mozart’s Reception in Vienna, 1787–1791’, p. 82.
9
Villeneuve’s probable participation is identified by Edge (‘Mozart’s Viennese Copyists’,
pp. 1509, 1669–1670), based on an annotation ‘La S: Vilneuf’ to the original first-desk violin
part. On Brocchi, see Woodfield, Cabals and Satires, and on Benucci, see Edge, ‘Mozart’s
Viennese Copyists’, pp. 1672–1673.
10
On Cruciati and Nencini, see Edge, ‘Mozart’s Viennese Copyists’, pp. 1671–1672.
11
Given (in French) in Link, National Court Theatre, p. 355 (7 May 1790). (‘Le Duo des deux
femmes, le rondeau de la ferraresi plait toujours’.) Zinzendorf also referred to the ‘charming
duet between La Cavalieri and La Ferrarese’ (‘Charmant Duo entre la Cavalieri et la ferraresi’)
on 31 August 1789 (National Court Theatre, p. 339).
12
Woodfield, Cabals and Satires.
412 Figaro Revival and Così fan tutte
music of Mr. Mozart and the singing of the famous singer vied for
supremacy; the same praise was earned by the recently arrived bass Herr
Brocehi [sic].’13
The main revisions for the Figaro revival comprise two new arias for
Ferrarese, ‘Un moto di gioia’ K. 579 as well as ‘Al desio’, and revised
versions of ‘Dove sono’ for Cavalieri and ‘Vedrò mentre’ for whoever
sang the Count. ‘Un moto di gioia’ and ‘Al desio’, discussed below, have
attracted the wrath of Mozart scholars, no doubt in part because the
replaced arias, ‘Venite inginocchiatevi’ and ‘Deh vieni’, are held in such
high esteem.14 But, clearly tailored to Ferrarese’s vocal qualities, including
a strong lower register, pronounced vocal flexibility, and an ability to make
big leaps, both arias contribute to a reimagined role for Susanna relative to
the original production, more elevated and poetic in ‘Un moto di gioia’ and
‘much more obviously a musical travestimento’ in imitation of the
Countess in ‘Al desio’, where we are made aware ‘that Susanna does not
have to remain locked in one particular vocal mold’.15 While ‘Al desio’,
dated July 1789 in the Verzeichnüß, was definitely written before the revival
began, ‘Un moto di gioia’ probably came later. The type of paper on which
it was written suggests composition in 1790 rather than 1789, midway
through Figaro’s run rather than before it started, perhaps in the second
half of the year.16
‘Vedrò mentre’ and ‘Dove sono’ were altered for the revival to accom-
modate vocal profiles different to those of the original Count and Susanna
(Mandini and Storace). Neither revision has survived in autograph form,
13
Pressburger Zeitung (2 September 1789), p. 634. (‘Das Publikum war damit sehr zufrieden . . .
Madame Ferrarese spielte als Prima Donna, and sang mit ihrer bekanntlichen Geschicklichkeit,
und Kunst, zeugte sich besonders in einem künstlich-harmonischen Rondeau, wo die Musik
des Herrn Mozart mit dem Gesang der berühmten Sängerinn um die Wette stritten; gleiches
Lob verdient der neu angekommene Bassist Herr Brocehi’.)
14
For criticism in the secondary literature, see discussion in Roger Parker, ‘Ersatz Ditties: Adriana
Ferrarese’s Susanna’, in Remaking the Song: Operatic Revisions from Handel to Berio (Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press, 2006), pp. 42–66, at 55, 60–61. Heartz (Mozart, Haydn,
Early Beethoven, p. 237) remarks brusquely: ‘[‘Un moto di gioia’ is] an anodyne little waltz.
Mozart did not see fit to enter this piece in his catalogue. . . . If “Un moto di gioia” could be said
to represent the “dumbing down” of Susanna, the other aria [“Al desio”] . . . could be called the
role’s “tarting up”.’ Rushton (The New Grove Guide to Mozart and His Operas [Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2007], p. 86) is more circumspect, but still critical: ‘Mozart’s replacement of
“Deh vieni” . . . by “Al desio” is perhaps a case of his damaging his own work by pandering to
a singer’s needs, although the new aria is beautiful in its own fashion.’
15
See Parker’s persuasive interpretation in Remaking the Song, pp. 52–66 (quotations at pp. 62,
66). On Ferrarese’s vocal qualities, see Patricia Gidwitz, ‘Mozart’s Fiordiligi: Adriana Ferrarese
del Bene’, Cambridge Opera Journal, 8 (1996), pp. 199–214.
16
See Edge, ‘Mozart’s Viennese Copyists’, pp. 1687–1702.
but ‘Dove sono’ is transmitted in the original Burgtheater performing

score.17 Since there is no certainty about the identity of the Count, motiva-
tions for changing ‘Vedrò mentre’ are difficult to determine. With frequent
high notes in the Allegro assai at g’, a fourth above the original, and
a higher tessitura in general, it is aimed at an authentic baritone; annota-
tions to the preceding Allegro maestoso, probably in Mozart’s hand, take
the aria up to written f’.18 Other changes include the elimination of much
of the original note repetition and a short extension to the aria at the end.
Adjustments to ‘Dove sono’ are more substantial and revealing.19 The final
one (Example 9.1), introducing coloratura, an extended g’’ for two and
a half bars and a semiquaver rising scale not witnessed in the correspond-
ing passage of the original, resonates with other music Mozart wrote for
Cavalieri. While virtuosic features accrue to the revision, then, they are
more modest than in her earlier Mozart arias and occur in the context of
a shortening of the overall length of the original by fifteen bars, perhaps
signalling a slight concession to diminished vocal powers, as in ‘Mi tradì’
from the Vienna Don Giovanni (1788).20 The first cut – eliminating the
reprise of the main theme at the end of the Andante – could have been
intended ‘to make the aria seem less explicitly a rondò, in order that
Cavalieri’s aria was not seen to compete with Ferrarese’s “Al desio”’.21
But it is unclear why Ferrarese would have worried about the formal type of
her rival’s aria and not about the additional coloratura its vocal line had
now acquired.
Above all, changes to ‘Dono sono’ for the Figaro revival need not be
processed as a series of ‘concessions . . . [effecting] in turn a stylistic
departure from the original . . . made to the detriment of one of the most
affecting solo moments in all of opera’, or as a ‘weakening . . . [of its]
finespun filaments’.22 In angular quaver lines coinciding with Cavalieri’s
sustained g’’ and a’ in the second revised passage (Example 9.1), the wind
17
Edge, ‘Mozart’s Viennese Copyists’, pp. 1704–1705.
18
See Edge, ‘Mozart’s Viennese Copyists’, p. 1719.
19
The two big adjustments comprise: cutting the Andante’s reprise of the main theme (bars 37–51
inclusive) and replacing the initial four and a half bars of the ensuing Allegro with seven and
a half bars of new material; and substituting a twelve-and-a-half-bar passage towards the end
with ten and a half bars. For a score of the revisions, see NMA, II/5/16, Kritische Berichte,
pp. 383–388.
20
For a similar argument see Gidwitz, ‘Vocal Portraits of Four Mozart Sopranos’, p. 253; see also
Gidwitz, ‘“Ich bin die erste Sängerinn”’, pp. 571–573. On ‘Mi tradì’, see Chapter 8 in this
volume.
21
Edge, ‘Mozart’s Viennese Copyists’, p. 1711.
22
See Gidwitz, ‘Vocal Portraits of Four Mozart Sopranos’, pp. 253, 254; Gutman, Mozart:
a Cultural Biography, pp. 701–702.
Example 9.1 Mozart, ‘Dove sono’ from Le nozze di Figaro revision (1789), between the original bars 83
and 97.
build on earlier dialogue with the voice, including imitation immediately

before the start of the revision. The wind agility too, with large leaps and
c’’’s in the oboe, may compensate for Cavalieri’s diminished suppleness
and more limited high notes than in days gone by, analogous to the florid
wind quaver lines helping her out in ‘Mi tradì’ (see Chapter 8). Cavalieri’s
new passage also extends further the virtuosic quaver material heard
earlier in the Allegro. Thus, the revisions to ‘Dove sono’ catch Mozart
re-envisaging his composition for a different performer. Just as experiences
and contemplation of performances of the ‘Haydn’ quartets and string
quintets, for example, provoke new interpretations of dynamics and articu-
lation (see Chapters 5 and 10), so a prospective rendition of ‘Dove sono’
stimulates revisions to the original. The chamber work with altered and
interpolated markings, the revised aria, and the replacement aria all exist
on a continuum defined by interrelationships between compositional
priorities and performance-related activities and concerns.
Once the Figaro production had begun, Mozart could turn his attention
to Così fan tutte. Mozart’s success with the revival may have led to a formal
commission for the new opera, as is commonly thought. But he had been
thinking about writing one at least since spring 1789, mentioning an
(ultimately unrealized) arrangement with Guardasoni for Prague.23 It is
not impossible that early ensembles for Così had been drafted by then.24 Da
Ponte said nothing about the opera’s genesis in his memoirs, only that it
held ‘third place among the three sisters born of that most celebrated father
of harmony’.25 He also failed to mention that Salieri was originally given
his libretto, at that stage titled La scola degli amanti. Salieri’s start on the
project and relinquishment of it, documented in Mary and Vincent
Novello’s conversations with Constanze in the 1820s, was only verified
around twenty-five years ago when his complete and partial settings of the
ensembles ‘È la fede femine’ (sic) and ‘La mia Dorabella’ came to light.26
Ultimately, Salieri’s ‘decision to abandon La scola degli amanti probably
had less to do with the quality of the libretto than with his state of mind in
1788 and 1789 – years marked by artistic indecisiveness, a low level of
creative energy, and varying degrees of dependence on earlier music’.27
The libretto itself, much discussed in the critical literature, draws on
a remarkable range of sources and contexts, old and new alike: elaborations
of the Ovidian Cephalus and Procris myth from Italian Renaissance
drama, including Boccaccio’s fourteenth-century Decameron and Ludovico
Ariosto’s sixteenth-century Orlando furioso; and, from the eighteenth cen-
tury, inter alia existing libretti by Giovanni Battista Casti, Metastasio and Da
Ponte himself, plot symmetries in Metastasio’s opere serie, the cult of
23
MBA, vol. 4, p. 80; LMF, p. 920 (10 April 1789).
24
See Woodfield, Così fan tutte, pp. 2–6; and Woodfield, Performing Operas for Mozart, p. 130.
25
Da Ponte, Memoirs, p. 185. 26 See Brown and Rice, ‘Salieri’s Così fan tutte’.
27
Brown and Rice, ‘Salieri’s Così fan tutte’, p. 35.
Mesmer and Mesmerism, and Pierre de Marivaux’s plays about the unrea-
listic ideals of constancy and fidelity.28 Beaumarchais’ defence of the wife of
prominent French Mesmer promoter Guillaume Kornman against her hus-
band’s allegations of infidelity, coinciding with Beaumarchais and Salieri’s
residence together in Paris in 1787, perhaps provided a further source of
inspiration for Da Ponte’s story.29 And two contemporary adventurers
posing as Albanians, Premislas and Stefano Zannowich, could explain
Ferrando and Guglielmo’s disguise as Albanians in Così.30 One writer
memorably characterized Così as a ‘promiscuous miscegenation’ of material
from different periods.31
Once Mozart had agreed to set Così he probably requested a number of
changes to the libretto previously in Salieri’s possession.32 The two types of
paper in the autograph illuminate compositional chronology especially for
Act 1, and confirm Mozart’s usual practice of writing most ensembles
before most arias: the trios ‘La mia Dorabella’, ‘È la fede delle femmine’,
‘Una bella serenata’, ‘Soave sia il vento’, ‘E voi ridete’, the duets ‘Ah
guarda sorella’, ‘Al fato’, the quintet ‘Sento oddio’, the sextet ‘Alla bella
Despinetta’, and the arias ‘Smanie implacabili’ and ‘Rivolgete’ are all on
Alan Tyson’s Type I paper and were therefore written first; the quintet ‘Di
scrivermi’ and aria ‘Un’ aura amorosa’ on a combination of Type I and II
paper came next; and the arias ‘Vorrei dir’, ‘In uomini’, ‘Come scoglio’,
‘Non siate ritrosi’, the chorus ‘Bella vita militar’, the finale and overture
exclusively on Type II paper followed later. All but ten of the 238 leaves of
28
On early sources, see Bruce Alan Brown, W. A. Mozart: ‘Così fan tutte’ (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1995), pp. 13–14, 58–70; Edmund J. Goehring, Three Modes of Perception in
Mozart: the Philosophical, Pastoral, and Comic in ‘Così fan tutte’ (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004), p. 106; Steptoe, Mozart-Da Ponte Operas, pp. 123–127. For eighteenth-
century sources, see Bruce Alan Brown, ‘Beaumarchais, Paisiello and the Genesis of Così fan
tutte’, in Sadie (ed.), Essays, pp. 312–338; Brown, Così fan tutte, pp. 15–18, 70–81; John Rice,
‘Musicological Introduction’, in W. A. Mozart, ‘Così fan tutte ossia La scuola degli amanti’,
K. 588: Facsimile of the Autograph Score (Los Altos, CA: Packard Humanities Institute, 2007),
vol. 3, p. 11; Goehring, Three Modes of Perception in Mozart, passim; Norbert Miller, ‘Toying
with the Emotions: Da Ponte’s and Mozart’s School of Lovers’, in ‘Così’: Facsimile of the
Autograph Score, p. 3; Dorothea Link, ‘L’arbore di Diana: a Model for Così fan tutte’, in Sadie
(ed.), Essays, pp. 362–373; Till, Mozart and the Enlightenment, pp. 229–257; Heartz, ‘Three
Schools for Lovers, or “Così fan tutte le belle”’, in Mozart’s Operas, pp. 216–227. On the
significance of the libretto’s settings, see Laurenz Lütteken, ‘Negating Opera Through Opera:
Così fan tutte and the Reverse of the Enlightenment’, Eighteenth-Century Music, 6 (2009), pp.
229–242, at 231–236.
29
Pierpaolo Polzonetti, ‘Mesmerizing Adultery: Così fan tutte and the Kornman Scandal’,
Cambridge Opera Journal, 14 (2002), pp. 263–296.
30
See Russell T. Bamhart, ‘The Two “Albanian Noblemen” in Così fan tutte’, Mitteilungen der
Internationalen Stiftung Mozarteum, 46 (1998), pp. 38–41.
31
Brown, Così fan tutte, p. 14. 32 See Brown and Rice, ‘Salieri’s Così fan tutte’, pp. 38–40.
Act 2 are on Type II paper.33 Philological evidence suggests a two-stage

genesis for Così as well as a short-lived idea of having the disguised Ferrando
and Guglielmo attempt to seduce their own rather than their colleague’s
partner.34 Rehearsals were taking place by 31 December 1789 and with a full
orchestra by 21 January 1790, five days before the opera’s first performance
on 26 January.35 In line with standard practice, a performing score for the
Burgtheater (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, OA 146) was copied from
the autograph in the run-up to the premiere and transmits a few cuts almost
certainly with Mozart’s authority and many others without it.36 A surviving
weekly ledger among the theatre accounts for the week of Così’s launch
confirms a standard payment of 100 ducats (450 gulden) for writing the
opera, rather than the 200 ducats Mozart claimed to expect in a begging
letter to Michael Puchberg. Higher commissioning fees were not unprece-
dented in the 1780s, including 300 ducats for Paisiello (Il re Teodoro in
Venezia) and 200 for Salieri (La cifra, which premiered seven weeks before
Così, and La grotta di Trofonio). But an ex gratia payment from Emperor
Joseph to raise Così’s total to 200 ducats seems unlikely on account of his
fatal illness and absence from the opera’s rehearsals and performances.37
Like Da Ponte’s libretto, Mozart’s music in Così resonates with late-
eighteenth-century material. Così’s links to Martín y Soler’s L’arbore di
Diana (1787), partially the result of various singers performing in both,
produce a ‘conversation between [the operas] . . . both amicable and quite
specifically inclusive of the audience’.38 In contrast, the conversation with
Casti and Salieri’s La grotta di Trofonio (1785) seemingly ‘[tells] a story of
33
See Alan Tyson, ‘On the Composition of Mozart’s Così fan tutte’, in Studies of the Autograph
Scores, pp. 177–221, at p. 182.
34
On the possible two-stage genesis, see Tyson, Autograph Scores, pp. 182–186 and Woodfield,
Così fan tutte, pp. 20–26. On the crossing and uncrossing of lovers for Ferrando and
Guglielmo’s seductions of Dorabella and Fiordiligi, see Woodfield, Così fan tutte, pp. 99–150.
35
See Mozart’s letters identifying a ‘little opera rehearsal’ (‘eine kleine Oper-Probe’) and the full
orchestra rehearsal to which Puchberg and Joseph Haydn were invited: MBA, vol. 4, pp. 100,
102; LMF, p. 935 (December 1789; 20 January 1790).
36
For discussions of this score, see Edge, ‘Mozart’s Viennese Copyists’, pp. 1922–1961 and
Woodfield, Così fan tutte, pp. 152–161. Woodfield (pp. 178–179) also documents the erstwhile
existence of a conducting score by showing that a small segment of it from the Act 2 finale
actually appears in the Burgtheater score copied from the autograph. Performing parts
associated with the original production do not survive.
37
See Edge, ‘Mozart’s Fee for Così fan tutte’, pp. 211–235. For the letter to Puchberg, see MBA,
vol. 4, p. 100; LMF, p. 934 (December 1789).
38
See Hunter, Culture of Opera Buffa in Mozart’s Vienna, pp. 250–256 (quotation at p. 256).
On parallels between the plots, pastoral elements, treatments of love and eroticism, and uses of
magic, disguise and transformation, see also Dorothea Link, ‘L’arbore di Diana: A Model for
Così fan tutte’, pp. 362–373.
unrelieved competitiveness on Mozart’s and Da Ponte’s parts’: plot

developments, overall design, dramatic roles, and music in Così can be
seen to address putative weaknesses in the earlier opera.39 Così’s musical
hinterland is informed by Salieri in other ways too: the Act 2 rondò for
Ferrarese, ‘Per pietà’, shows Mozart learning from formal, vocal and
instrumental features of the same singer’s rondò ‘Sola e mesta’ in
Salieri’s La cifra (1789); the beautiful canon from the Act 2 finale stands
in apparent competition with Salieri’s canon from La cifra; and the
change in the opera’s title from La scola degli amanti to Così fan tutte,
almost certainly at Mozart’s behest, may represent an attempt to distance
the opera from the initial recipient of the libretto, making ‘pointed
references’ to the libretto of Figaro instead (specifically Basilio’s line ‘Così
fan tutte le belle’ from the Act 1 trio ‘Cosa sento’).40 Unsurprisingly, Così has
musical and dramatic links with Figaro, Mozart’s previous commission
for the Burgtheater and an opera very much on his mind during Così’s
genesis.41 In fact, when Figaro, Così and Paisiello’s Il barbiere di Siviglia
(1782) are considered as an alternative kind of Da Ponte trilogy, ‘a
renewal of a venerable tradition of plots in which young lovers outwit
an old tutor’ (Il barbiere) followed by an injection of ‘strong political
overtones into the formula’ (Figaro) and finally a ‘cynicism in love . . .
pushed to the very limit before the possibility of redemption is revealed’
(Così), musical, textual and plot-related connections come to light: Don
Alfonso’s short aria ‘Vorrei dir’ and the chorus ‘Bella vita militar’ are
modelled on ‘L’invidia, oh ciel’ (Il barbiere) and ‘Non più andrai’
(Figaro) respectively; and ‘È la fede femmine’ invokes ‘Oh che umor’ (Il
barbiere).42 Other similarities between Figaro and Così include love and
seduction duets in A major and thematic features of the two
overtures.43 As we shall see, the 1786 Figaro and the revival together
provide a starting point for evaluating relationships between the per-
formance and composition of Così.
39
Hunter, Culture of Opera Buffa in Mozart’s Vienna, pp. 257–264 (quotation at p. 257).
40
On these various points see, respectively, Rice, Salieri and Viennese Opera, pp. 486–487;
Dorothea Link, ‘“È la fede degli amanti” and the Viennese Operatic Canon’, in Keefe (ed.),
Mozart Studies, pp. 109–136, and Link, ‘The Viennese Operatic Canon and Mozart’s Così fan
tutte’, Mitteilungen der Internationalen Stiftung Mozarteum, 38 (1991), pp. 111–121; Tyson,
Mozart: Studies of the Autograph Scores, p. 197; Brown and Rice, ‘Salieri’s Così fan tutte’, p. 28.
41
As early as 1803, Arnold (Mozarts Geist, pp. 390–391) drew attention to a similar inexhaustible
richness of melodic material in Figaro and Così.
42
Brown, ‘Beaumarchais, Paisiello and the Genesis of Così’, pp. 313–322 (quoted material at
p. 314). See also Brown, Così fan tutte, pp. 6–7.
43
See Heartz, Mozart’s Operas, pp. 223–225, 234–237.
The principal singers at the Così premiere comprised two with whom
Mozart had not previously worked before 1789 (Ferrarese and Louisa
Villeneuve as Fiordiligi and Dorabella), one who had been in Vienna for
several years but had hitherto featured in only two ensembles by Mozart
(Vincenzo Calvesi as Ferrando), and three for whom the composer had
previously created operatic roles (Francesco Benucci, Francesco Bussani
and Dorotea Bussani as Guglielmo, Don Alfonso and Despina). Mozart did
not have a high opinion of Ferrarese, whose Viennese debut was in Martín
y Soler’s L’arbore di Diana on 13 October 1788 and who in subsequent
months sang in Weigl’s Il pazzo per forza, Salieri’s Il pastor fido and Da
Ponte’s L’ape musicale: from Dresden, he remarked that ‘the leading female
singer Madame Allegranti, by the way, is much better than Madame
Ferarese [sic] – although that doesn’t say much’; and from Vienna, he
wrote that the ‘little aria [“Un moto di gioia”] that I have done for the
Ferraresi [sic], ought to please, I think, if indeed she is able to perform it
naively which, though, I very much doubt’.44 Her weaknesses, documented
by late-eighteenth-century critics as well as by Mozart, did not obscure
genuine qualities, such as the aforementioned dramatic leaps from high to
low notes (cantar di sbalzo).45 And her Viennese debut was well received:
Madame Ferrarese was seen, heard and marvelled at for the first time this Monday
in L’arbore di Diana. . . . She really has as many innate as acquired virtues, which
put some in difficulty as to whether it is better to close your eyes just to listen, or to
plug up your ears, in order only to watch; really vying with nature and art the whole
public rewarded with the loudest applause.46
Villeneuve, who travelled to Vienna from Italy and again made her debut
in L’arbore di Diana (27 June 1789), also elicited praise: ‘Her charming
appearance, her refined, expressive acting, and her beautiful, stylish singing
received the applause they merited’; and ‘the public showed inexpressible
satisfaction at the prosperity, the truth and the energy with which the
young singer showed herself off; her ability in the art of acting, and her
44
MBA, vol. 4, pp. 83, 97; LMF, pp. 924 (16 April 1789), 933–934 (traditionally dated
19 August 1789, but probably written later; see Edge, ‘Mozart’s Viennese Copyists’, p. 1690).
For a list of the operas in which Ferrarese performed at the Burgtheater between 1788 and her
departure from Vienna in 1791, see Gidwitz, ‘Mozart’s Fiordiligi’, p. 203.
45
Gidwitz, ‘Mozart’s Fiordiligi’, pp. 199, 202.
46
Oberdeutsche Staatszeitung (21 October 1788), p. 841. ‘Madame Ferrarese hat sich diesen
Montag in L’arbore di Diana das erste Mahl sehen, hören, und bewundern lassen. . . .
[Wirklich] besitzt sie eben so viele angebohrne, als erworbene Vorzüge, die manche in
Verlegenheit setzen, ob es besser sey die Augen zu verschliessen, um bloß zu hören, oder die
Ohren zu verstopfen, um nur zu sehen; wirklich wetteiferten Natur, und Kunst dem gesammten
Publikum den lautesten Beyfall abzwingen.’
method in singing received the undivided approbation of the numerous

listeners.’47 Mozart wrote three replacement arias for her before the Così
premiere: ‘Alma grande’, K. 578, for Cimarosa’s I due baroni first performed
in Rome in 1783 and heard only twice in Vienna (6, 13 September 1789); and
‘Chi sà, chi sà, qual sia’ K. 582 and ‘Vado, ma dove?’ K. 583 for Martín
y Soler’s Il burbero di buon cuore, which was revived on 9 November 1789
having premiered in Vienna on 4 January 1786.48
The male singers in Così were also very experienced by 1789. Calvesi,
a high tenor in the tenore contraltino tradition and based in Vienna since
1785, possessed a sweet, sonorous voice and had recognized strengths in
lyrical and intensely energetic singing rather than coloratura. During his
Viennese career thus far and in addition to Bianchi’s La villanella rapita for
which Mozart wrote two ensembles in late 1785 (see Chapter 6), Calvesi
participated in premieres of (for example) Stephen Storace’s Gli sposi
malcontenti and Gli equivoci, Salieri’s La grotta di Trofonio, Axur, re
d’Ormus and La cifra, and Martín y Soler’s Una cosa rara and L’arbore di
Diana.49 By Così’s premiere, Francesco Bussani had sung operatic roles for
over twenty-five years, mostly in Italy. Having married Dorotea Bussani on
23 March 1786, six weeks before her debut as Cherubino in Figaro and his
creation of Antonio and Bartolo in the same opera, husband and wife
performed together in I due baroni and Il Re Teodoro in Venezia
in September 1789 and April 1790, either side of Così’s launch.50 Clashes
between the Bussanis and Da Ponte mentioned earlier could have begun
with the Figaro revival. As the original Cherubino in 1786, which was also
47
See Clive, Mozart and His Circle, p. 161 (Clive’s translation); Pressburger Zeitung, 1 July 1789),
p. 446. (‘Das Publikum bezeigte eine unaussprechliche Zufriedenheit über den Wohlstand, die
Wahrheit, und den Nachdruck, mit dem sich die jünge Sängerin produziert hat; ihre Fähigkeit
in der Schauspielkunst, und ihre Methode im Singen erhielt den ungetheilten Beyfall der
zahlreichen Zuhörer.’
48
On ‘Alma grande’, ‘Chi sà, chi sà’ and ‘Vado, ma dove?’ including important musical-textual
issues in ‘Alma grande’ deriving from the absence of an extant autograph, see Edge, ‘Mozart’s
Viennese Copyists’, pp. 1866–1922. For different views of Mozart’s possible authorship of an
accompanied recitative preceding ‘Vado, ma dove?’, see Dorothea Link, ‘A Newly Discovered
Accompanied Recitative to Mozart’s “Vado, ma dove”, K. 583’, Cambridge Opera Journal, 12
(2000), pp. 29–50; and Dexter Edge, ‘Attributing Mozart (i): Three Accompanied Recitatives’,
Cambridge Opera Journal, 13 (2001), pp. 197–237, especially 217–230.
49
See Dorothea Link (ed.), Arias for Vincenzo Calvesi, Mozart’s First Ferrando (Middleton, WI:
A-R Editions, 2011), Introduction, pp. ix–xxvii.
50
For biographical information on the Bussanis, see Rudolph Angermüller, ‘Francesco Bussani –
Mozarts erster Bartolo, Antonio und Alfonso und Dorothea Bussani – Mozarts erster
Cherubino und erste Despina’, Mozart Studien, 10 (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 2001), pp.
213–231. Their martial status and co-participation in Così as Despina and Don Alfonso may
account for some late changes to the libretto; see Woodfield, Così fan tutte, pp. 93–95.
her operatic debut, Dorotea could have had a proprietal relationship with
the role and therefore not welcomed Villeneuve replacing her.51
Benucci, a star of the Viennese firmament, saw his participation change
most during Così’s genesis. Intended initially for the role of Don Alfonso,
Benucci was to receive an aria to the text of ‘Donne mie’ in Act 1 – for
which an abandoned draft survives – similar in character to ‘Rivolgete’.
Once recast as Guglielmo, the aria ‘Rivolgete’ was written for him for Act 1,
but was then itself replaced by ‘Non siate ritrosi’ and a new setting of
‘Donne mie’ (now for Guglielmo) incorporated into Act 2.52 ‘Rivolgete’
was rejected late in the opera’s genesis, judging by its appearance in the
draft libretto.53 Why Mozart preferred the short and modest ‘Non siate
ritrosi’ to the expansive, instrumentally and vocally virtuosic ‘Rivolgete’ is
a matter of conjecture: the crossing of lovers in the latter’s text, Guglielmo
directing his attention to Dorabella, may have come to be considered
unnecessary at this juncture and the more neutral text of ‘Non siate ritrosi’
favoured instead; both the tonality of ‘Rivolgete’, foreshadowing the Act 1
finale’s D major, and the overall length of the first act (with this extended
aria included), could have given pause for thought; and the aria’s high
tessitura may have proved challenging for Benucci.54 Mozart’s autograph
annotation ‘attacca N: 16’ (to the trio ‘E voi ridete’ at the end of ‘Rivolgete’)
would have deprived Benucci of immediate audience approbation in
showstopping fashion and thus may not have been well received. At least
by his own standards Mozart reworked the aria quite a bit too, suggesting
more difficulties than usual with its composition: horn parts are written for
all of the Allegro and first six bars of the Allegro molto, but then crossed
out; and a fifteen-bar particella early in the Allegro molto was rejected.
Given the self-evident quality and dramatic import of the music, it is
unlikely that any single element by itself provoked Mozart’s change of
plan: after all, echoes of ‘Cherubino alla vittoria’ from ‘Non più andrai’,
performed with ‘Stentorian lungs’ to such memorable effect by Benucci as
51
On Villeneuve’s participation as Cherubino in the Figaro revival, see Edge, ‘Mozart’s Viennese
Copyists’, pp. 1509, 1669–1670. It is possible that Villeneuve was originally intended for the role
of Despina and that Dorotea Bussani replaced her. See Woodfield, Così fan tutte, pp. 91–98.
The Bussanis left Vienna in 1794 having not acquired the recognition they thought was
deserved. See Clive, Mozart and His Circle, pp. 32–33.
52
See Woodfield, Così fan tutte, pp. 81–91. 53 Woodfield, Così fan tutte, p. 120.
54
See Woodfield, Così fan tutte, pp. 87–88; John Stone, ‘Note on “Rivolgete a lui”,’ in
Nicholas John (ed.), ‘Così fan tutte’: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (London: Calder, 1983), p. 124;
Heartz, ‘When Mozart Revises: The Case of Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte’ in Sadie (ed.), Essays,
pp. 355–361; Rushton ‘Buffo Roles in Mozart’s Vienna’, in Opera Buffa in Mozart’s Vienna,
pp. 410, 423–424.
the original Figaro, would no doubt have been warmly welcomed by the
same singer. Had Mozart (and Benucci) ultimately wanted to retain
‘Rivolgete’, then, textual and musical (including tonal) changes could
have been made. Rather, a combination of factors, compositional as well
as related to performance, probably brought Mozart to a tipping point
where replacement became preferable to revision.
In addition to role changes and difficult relationships among several
protagonists, egos flared up in the run-up to the Così premiere. Inviting
Puchberg to the rehearsal on 31 December 1789, Mozart wrote: ‘I will tell
you about Salieri’s cabals, all of which, though, have already fallen
through.’55 Joseph Eybler, an associate of Mozart during the last years of
the composer’s life, also explained: ‘When Mozart wrote the opera Così fan
tutte, and was not yet finished with the instrumentation, and also time was
pressing, he asked me to rehearse the singers, and especially the two female
singers Ferarese [sic] and Villeneuve; whereupon I had quite enough oppor-
tunity to get to know theatre life, with its disorders, cabals, and so on.’56
Irrespective of how his singers behaved, Mozart entrusted to them
important interpretative decisions potentially affecting the ontology of the
drama, as in Die Entführung, Figaro and Don Giovanni. In the opening duet
for the lead women ‘Ah guarda sorella’, for example, Mozart gives Ferrarese
and Villeneuve an opportunity to define Fiordiligi and Dorabella’s relation-
ship. The two perform almost entirely apart in the Andante and almost
entirely together in the Allegro. The blend between them is clearly para-
mount in the Allegro and in the bars approaching the pauses that imme-
diately precede it (bars 70–71). While high sustained notes (e’’ for Dorabella
then a’’ for Fiordiligi; bars 103–127) imply either ‘interchangeability’57 or
a kind of one-upmanship, close coordination is paramount in pauses and
elaborations and a two-bar Adagio (bars 83–91, Example 9.2): by interrupt-
ing the musical flow here, in the context of vocally exposed material,
Mozart shines a spotlight on the collaboration of his two female performers.
He leaves more to their discretion in the Andante, though. To be sure, vocal
material and accompaniments contrast in various ways. But the two singers
would have had to decide – as do performers of these roles today – whether
55
MBA, vol. 4, p. 100; LMF, p. 935 (December 1789).
56
Friedrich Rochlitz, ‘Nachschrift zur Recension von Eyblers Requiem’, Allgemeine musikalische
Zeitung, 28 (1826), cols. 337–340 at 338–339. (‘Denn als Mozart die Oper Così fan tutte schrieb,
und mit dem Instrumentiren noch nicht fertig war, gleichwohl die Zeit drängte: so ersuchte er
mich, die Gesangproben zu halten and besonders die beyden Sängerinnen, Ferarese und
Villeneuve, einzustudiren; wo ich Gelegenheit vollauf fand, das Theaterleben, mit seinen
Unruhen, Kabalen u. dgl. m. kennen zu lernen.’)
57
Brown, Così fan tutte, p. 29.
Example 9.2 Mozart, ‘Ah guarda sorella’, from Così fan tutte, bars 84–91.
analogous florid embellishments, and individual pause bars carrying oppor-

tunities for further embellishments, are to convey similar or differing
impressions of the sisters: either they blend beautifully, or are distinct, or
compete with each other (see bars 28–65). As is so often the case, Mozart
asks interpretative questions and leaves performers to answer them.
Music for the principal male singers also invites performers to enhance
the dramatic experience. The sequence of three trios at the opening reaches
a climax in the valedictory ‘Una bella serenata’ – in C major, with trumpets
and timpani – where Ferrando and Guglielmo look forward improvidently
to the party celebrating winning their bet with Don Alfonso about the
faithfulness of Dorabella and Fiordiligi.58 Judging by ‘È la fede femmine’
and ‘Una bella serenata’, the teleological progression of the ensembles is to
be boosted by the singers: the impassioned ‘con foco’ (fuoco) statements
from Ferrando and Guglielmo in the former set the scene for the brash
opening statements of the latter; and the sotto voce pronouncements of the
women’s names at the end of ‘È la fede femmine’ become alternating sotto
voces and fortes for Ferrando, Guglielmo and Don Alfonso in ‘Una bella
serenata’, supported at one point by crescendi and sforzandi in strings and
58
For evidence from the autograph of Mozart’s concern for dramatic pacing in the first three trios
and for developing a ‘fast-moving progression of ensembles’, see Woodfield, Così fan tutte,
p. 61.
winds respectively. Right at the start of the opera, then, Mozart encourages
Calvesi, Benucci and Francesco Bussani to consider how they will make an
impact across two numbers.
Instrumental and vocal features of the aria autographs, like musical
evidence from the opening trios and duet, capture ebb and flow between
Mozart and his performers. Orchestral participation and instrumental
effects in Così have long held a special place in critical affections, and
occupy much of my attention in the remainder of this chapter, especially
as they relate to implications for vocal performance. Ignaz Arnold (1803),
who follows Niemetschek in wondering how Mozart’s heavenly melodies
could have been wasted on such a ‘wretched concoction’ (elendes
Machwerk) of a text, admires excellent instrumental accompaniments
in the opera as a whole and orchestration in the overture in particular.59
In 1804, the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung explained: ‘One is struck at
first by the delicacy with which this opera is scored; how Mozart refrained
from all the overburdening [of instrumental accompaniments] for which
he has been reproached as well; how appropriately he has attended to the
wind instruments.’60 Nissen (1828) lauded the effective (zweckmässig) use
of all wind instruments.61 Later in the nineteenth century, Jahn (1856)
warmly commended orchestration in a selection of numbers. Moreover:
‘The wind instruments are brought more forward [than in Figaro and
Don Giovanni], in more varied combinations and finer shades of tone-
colouring.’62 And in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, critics
have lined up to praise wind sonorities and effects in Così.63 But orches-
tration was not just a matter of polishing ‘purely musical’ detail in pursuit
of ‘final [touches] of perfection’.64 For Mozart’s attention would have had
to be directed to wind instrumentation in certain numbers from Così on
account of the principal singers for whom he wrote: two new to him
(Ferrarese and Villeneuve), whose successful combinations with wind he
still had to determine; one (Benucci) who flourished with big orchestral
59
Arnold, Mozarts Geist, pp. 391–392.
60
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 6 (1803–1804), cols. 422–424, at 423.
61
Nissen, Anhang zu Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarts Biographie, p. 94.
62
Jahn, Life of Mozart, vol. 3, pp. 237–274 (quotation at 274).
63
See, for example, Abert, W. A. Mozart, pp. 1180, 1196, 1300; Saint-Foix, Mozart, 1777–1791: Le
grand voyage, L’épanouissement, Les dernières années, pp. 642, 646, 649, 650; Landon,
The Golden Years, p. 179; Steptoe, Mozart-Da Ponte Operas, pp. 211–212; Rosselli, Life of
Mozart, p. 102; Rushton, New Grove Guide to Mozart and His Operas, p. 102; Cairns, Mozart
and His Operas, pp. 180, 189–190; Woodfield, Così fan tutte, pp. 60, 74.
64
For this narrow assessment of the significance of orchestration in Così fan tutte, see Woodfield,
Così fan tutte, pp. 75–77.
Writing for Wind 425
effects and therefore could readily bring approbation for composer and
performer alike; and another (Calvesi) known to him from years in
service in Vienna but not yet in receipt of any of his arias. While the
formation of a score’s brace at the left-hand side of each page required
a decision early in the compositional process about the projected size of
an orchestral contingent, Mozart often refined views about wind partici-
pation when carrying out the orchestration itself.65 Indeed, revisions and
alterations to wind scoring – many discussed below – reveal it as an issue
on Mozart’s mind during the opera’s genesis.66 The autographs of Così
and ‘Un moto di gioia’ for the Figaro revival, moreover, show consider-
ably more changes and refinements than the autographs of the original
Figaro (1786) and Don Giovanni.67
Writing for Wind
A comparison between wind instrumentation in Le nozze di Figaro and

Così fan tutte establishes distinctive features of both Così and new Figaro
numbers for the revival (see Table 9.1).
As we can see, the most common wind scoring in Così is of a slightly
darker hue than the most common for the 1786 Figaro: two clarinets,
two bassoons and two horns – a traditional six-part Harmonie – in
contrast to two flutes, two oboes, two bassoons and two horns. Wind
instrumentalists available to Mozart at the Burgtheater were probably
identical in 1786–1787 and 1789–1790 seasons, so cannot account for the
65
As Woodfield points out (Così fan tutte, p. 16), Mozart often orchestrated numbers from Così in
separate stages for strings and then wind.
66
For a partial summary of changes, see Woodfield, Così fan tutte, p. 64.
67
In Figaro and Don Giovanni, as in Così, names of wind instruments for individual numbers are
often annotated on lines of the original particella brace only in the completion phase; whether
Mozart changed his mind between particella and orchestration cannot be known in these cases.
Six numbers in the autograph of the 1786 Figaro provide evidence of rethinking: ‘Voi che
sapete’ and ‘Hai gia vinta’ for which two lines of the autograph are left blank, implying
consideration at one stage of larger accompanying wind cohorts than were eventually
employed; chorus no. 23, where ‘2 flauti’ and ‘2 fagotti’ are crossed out and replaced by ‘1 flauto
solo’ and ‘1 fagotto solo’; the march in the Act 3 finale, where ‘2 clarinetti in C’ unusually appear
on the eleventh stave of the twelve-stave paper; ‘In quegl’ anni’ for which ‘1 flauto’ is notated at
the completion stage on the top stave; and ‘Deh vieni’ which acquires a flute midway through
the particella (see Chapter 7). Wind instrumentation in one number from Don Giovanni is also
unambiguously revised: two trumpets and timpani are written in the original brace for
Leporello’s ‘Madamina’ but are subsequently crossed out to leave empty the two staves to which
they were assigned. For evidence of revisions and refinements to wind instrumentation in Così
(and ‘Un moto di gioia’ for the Figaro revival), see below.
Table 9.1 Wind instrumentation in the 1786 Figaro, the Figaro revival and Così fan tutte
Cosi fan tutte (1789–1790),

and new Figaro numbers for
Instrumentation Figaro (1786) 1789–1791 (bold italics)
1fl, 1ob, 1cl, 1bsn, 2hns 1 (No. 11 ‘Voi che sapete’)

1fl, 1bsn 2 (No. 2 ‘È la fede delle femmine’;
No. 15 ‘Non siate’)
1fl, 1bsn, 2hns 1 (No. 19 ‘Una donna’)
1fl, 1ob, 1bsn 1 (No. 27 ‘Deh vieni’) 1 (No. 12 ‘In uomini’)
1fl, 1ob, 1bsn, 2hns 1 (‘Un moto di gioia’, K. 579, for
‘Figaro’)
1fl, 2obs, 2cls, 2bsns, 1 (No. 28 ‘È amore’)
2hns
1fl, 2obs, 1bsn, 2hns 1 (No. 21/Chorus)
1fl, 2cls, 2bsns, 2hns 1 (No. 25 ‘In quegl’anni’)
2fls, 2obs, 2bsns 2 (No. 31 Act 2 finale, Allegro,
bars 205–89; No. 31 Act 2 finale,
Allegretto, bars 496–530)
2fls, 2obs, 2bsns, 2hns 12 (No. 1 ‘Cinque’; No. 2 ‘Se a caso 3 (No. 16 ‘E voi ridete?’; No. 18
madama’ [alto horns]; No. 5 ‘Via Act 1 finale, Allegro, bars
resti’; No. 12 ‘Venite’; No. 15 Act 2 292–428; No. 31 Act 2 finale,
finale, Allegro, bars 328–397; No. 15 Andante con moto, bars
Act 2 finale, Andante, bars 398–466; 531–575)
No. 15 Act 2 finale, Allegro molto,
bars 467–604); No. 18 ‘Riconosci’;
No. 22 Act 3 finale, Andante-
Maestoso, bars 132–185; No. 28 Act
4 finale, Con un poco più di moto,
bars 51–108; No. 28, Act 4 finale,
Allegro assai, bars 335–420; No. 28
Act 4 finale, Andante, bars 421–447)
2fls, 2obs, 2cls, 2bsns, 3 (No. 15 Act 2 finale, bars 167–327;
2hns No. 15 Act 2 finale, Andante, bars
605–696; No. 28 Act 4 finale,
Andante, bars 275–334)
2fls, 2obs, 2cls, 2bsns, 4 (Overture; No. 15 Act 2 finale, 4 (Overture; No. 18 Act 1 finale,
2hns, 2trs Allegro assai/Più allegro/ Allegro, bars 485–697; No. 31
Prestissimo, bars 697–939; No. 22 Act 2 finale, Maestoso, bars
Act 3 finale, Marcia, bars 1–60; 290–309; No. 31 Act 2 finale,
No. 28 Act 4 finale, Allegro assai, Allegro molto, bars 576–671)
bars 448–521)
2fls, 2obs, 2bsns, 2trs 2 (No. 8/chorus; No. 18 Act 1
finale, Allegro, bars 62–137)
Table 9.1 (cont.)

2fls, 2obs, 2bsns, 2hns, 4 (No. 4 ‘La vendetta’; No. 9 ‘Non più 1 (No. 26 ‘Donne mie’)
2trs andrai’; No. 17 ‘Vedrò’; No. 22 Act 3
finale, Allegretto, bars 61–131 &
186–229)
2fls, 2cls, 2bsns, 2hns 1 (No. 28 Act 4 finale, Larghetto, bars 4 (No. 10 ‘Soave sia il vento’;
109–274) No. 11 ‘Smanie’; No. 25 ‘Per
pietà’; No. 31 Act 2 finale,
Allegro, bars 310–371)
2fls, 2bsns, 2hns 2 (No. 8/chorus; No. 16 ‘Crudel’) 1 (No. 18 Act 1 finale, Andante,
bars 1–61)
2fls, 2bsns, 2trs 1 (No. 22 ‘La mano’)
1ob, 1bsn 1 (No. 20 ‘Sull’aria’)
2obs, 2cls, 2bsns, 2hns 2 (No. 7 ‘Cosa sento’; No. 15 Act 1 1 (No. 27 ‘Tradito’)
finale, Molto Andante, bars
126–166)
2obs, 2cls, 2bsns, 2hns, 1 (No. 15 Act 1 finale, Allegro, bars 1 (No. 31 Act 2 finale, Andante,
2trs 1–125) bars 66–172)
2obs, 2cls, 2bsns, 2trs 3 (No. 13 ‘Alla bella Despinetta’;
No. 14 ‘Come scoglio’; No. 31
Act 2 finale, Allegro, bars
441–465)
2obs, 2bsns, 2hns 4 (No. 3 ‘Se vuol ballare’; No. 13 2 (No. 1 ‘La mia Dorabella’; No. 29
‘Susanna or via sortite’; No. 19 ‘Dove ‘Fra gli amplessi’)
sono’; No. 28 Act 4 finale, Andante,
bars 1–50)
2obs, 2bsns, 2trs 3 (No. 3 ‘Una bella serenata’;
No. 15a ‘Rivolgete’, K. 584;
No. 31 Act 2 finale, Allegro
assai, bars 1–65)
2cls, 1bsn, 2trs 1 (No. 24, ‘Ah lo veggio’)
2cls, 2bsns 1 (No. 9 ‘Di scrivermi’)
2cls, 2bsns, 2hns 3 (No. 6 ‘Non sò più’; No. 10 ‘Porgi 11 (No. 4 ‘Ah guarda sorella’;
amor’; No. 26 ‘Aprite un po’’) No. 6 ‘Sento oddio’; No. 7 ‘Al
fato’; No. 17 ‘Un’aura amorosa’;
No. 18 Act 1 finale, Allegro,
bars 138–291; No. 20
‘Prenderò’; No. 21 ‘Secondate’
[with 2fls for concluding
chorus]; No. 23 ‘Il core vi dono’;
No. 31 Act 2 finale, Larghetto,
bars 173–204; No. 31 Act 2
finale, Andante, bars 372–440;
No. 31 Act 2 finale, Andante,
bars 466–495)
Table 9.1 (cont.)

2cls, 2bsns, 2trs 1 (No. 18, Act 1 finale, Andante,

bars 429–484)
2basset-horns, 2bsns, 1 (‘Al desio’, K. 577, for ‘Figaro’)
2hns + 1 (revision of ‘Aprite un po’’ for
‘Figaro’)?68
No winds 3 (No. 14 ‘Aprite presto’; No. 23 ‘L’ho 2 (No. 5 ‘Non vorrei’; No. 30 ‘Tutti
perduta’; No. 24 ‘Il capro’) accusan’)
Wind-only numbers 1 (No. 21 ‘Secondate’)
Unambiguously wind- 3 (No. 27 ‘Tradito’; No. 28 ‘È
led numbers amore’; ‘Al desio’, K. 577, for
‘Figaro’)
Notes:
–No. 15a ‘Rivolgete’ (which Mozart completed) is included for Così fan tutte, in spite of having been cut
from the opera by December 1789.
–Sections of act finales are included as separate entries.
change.69 Anton and Johann Stadler, for example, lauded for orchestral as
well as solo clarinet and basset-horn playing, and Johann Georg Triebensee,
praised for playing the oboe ‘with great feeling’,70 would have performed in
both seasons. Indeed, almost all the Burgtheater wind instrumentalists were
individually identified as exemplary Viennese musicians in 1791.71 Perhaps
Mozart was attracted to the acknowledged harmoniousness of combined
clarinets, bassoons and horns in an opera so dominated by tender emotions
of love.72 And he would have benefitted in Così from the fact that the
Burgtheater orchestra’s ways of conveying still and soft expression were
particularly remarkable in 1789–1790 (according to Baron von
68
Edge discovered a second basset-horn part for ‘Aprite un po’’ – a transposition of the second-
clarinet part – among the original performing materials for Figaro; the paper type and copyist
almost certainly date it to the 1789–1791 revival. See Edge, ‘Mozart’s Viennese Copyists’,
pp. 1505, 1507.
69
The Burgtheater account books, inter alia listing instrumentalists, vocalists and their salaries,
are no longer extant for the 1789–1790 season. But wind instrumentalists named in the theatre
orchestra for 1786–1787 and 1791–1792 (the next available after 1788–1789) are identical. See
Link, National Court Theatre, pp. 422–423, 438–439.
70
Schönfeld, ‘A Yearbook of Music in Vienna and Prague’, pp. 313, 315.
71
Joseph Marx von Liechtenstein, Beiträge zur genauern Kenntniss der österreichischen Staaten
und Provinzen (Vienna and Leipzig, 1791), pp. 193–194.
72
On the harmoniousness of these instruments see Francoeur, Diapason général de tous les
instrumens à vent, pp. 35, 55 (and Chapter 1 of this volume).
Reitzenstein).73 The gentle qualities of the three individual instruments may

also have appealed to Mozart.74 Viennese clarinets, especially those manu-
factured by an associate of Mozart and the Stadlers, Theodor Lotz, were
known for their dark sound quality:75 they participate in twenty-eight
numbers from Così as opposed to sixteen in Figaro. But the presence in
‘Al desio’ of the clarinet family’s still darker basset-horns, ‘the most richly
toned of all wind instruments’ according to the Vienna-based Johann Georg
Albrechtsberger in 1790,76 shows that Mozart’s predilection for the clarinet-
bassoon-horn sonority in 1789–1790 also extended beyond Così.
Four numbers scored exclusively or primarily for wind further distin-
guish the Figaro revival and Così from the 1786 Figaro. The Così duet
‘Secondate, aurette amiche’, for example, strikes a chord with two wind-
orientated segments of Don Giovanni: as they do at Don Giovanni’s request
in the banquet scene from the Act 2 finale, the wind band perform on stage,
in effect acting on Ferrando and Guglielmo’s command; and, as in
‘Protegga’ from the Act 1 finale where Donna Anna, Donna Elvira and
Don Ottavio request divine protection, Ferrando and Guglielmo implore
the wind to blow kisses from their boat to their beloved Fiordiligi and
Dorabella on land.77 Perhaps memories of a positive reception for the
passages from Don Giovanni acted as a catalyst for Mozart to write
‘Secondate’ exclusively for wind accompaniment. At any rate, as one critic
has noted: ‘The sensuous beauty of the whole scene . . . would be enough to
73
Von Reitzenstein, Reise nach Wien, p. 256.
74
On the bassoon in this respect, see Koch, Musikalisches Lexikon, col. 549, and Béthizy,
Exposition de la théorie et de la pratique de la musique, pp. 305–306; and on the horn, see
Framery, ‘Cor’, in Encyclopédie méthodique, vol. 1, p. 379, and Schubart, Ideen zu einer Ästhetik
der Tonkunst (1806), pp. 311–312. For Anton Stadler’s tender and gentle playing, see MDL,
p. 206; MDB, pp. 232–233. The gentle quality of the clarinet is also exploited in the clarinet
quintet, K. 581, completed on 29 September 1789 four months before the Così premiere.
The fragment K. 581a setting Così’s ‘Ah lo veggio’ theme for clarinet is more likely to have been
written after the opera than before, so would not have been considered for inclusion in the
clarinet quintet K. 581 as is sometimes suggested. See Tyson, Autograph Scores, p. 138.
Nevertheless, the sketch offers another point of connection between the clarinet and an opera in
which it participates so prominently.
75
See Eric Hoeprich, Clarinet (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008), p. 72.
76
Albrechtsberger, Gründliche Anweisung zur Composition (Leipzig: Breitkopf, 1790), p. 426
(‘tonreichste aller Blasinstrumente’).
77
There is no extant autograph of ‘Secondate’; the Burgtheater performing score is therefore the
primary source for transmitting this number. It was probably added very late in the genesis of
the opera (Tyson, Autograph Scores, p. 190), having first been conceived in all likelihood as
a chorus (Woodfield, Così fan tutte, p. 59). Thirteen bars (25–37) – part of the instrumental
introduction – appear in the Burgtheater score, but not in other sources. See Edge, ‘Mozart’s
Viennese Copyists’, p. 1931.
seduce anyone, let alone two such flighty young ladies as Dorabella and
Fiordiligi.’78
Thus, wind writing in Così and the Figaro revival occupies an important
place in Mozart’s operatic oeuvre to date. As we shall see, wind instru-
mentation in arias for Calvesi, Benucci, Ferrarese and Villeneuve evolved
during the compositional process: refinements to voice-wind timbres
were made in many instances possibly in consultation with the singers
themselves.79
Writing for Singers and Wind
The autograph of ‘Al desio’, Ferrarese’s rondò to replace ‘Deh vieni’ in Act
4 of Figaro, is no longer extant, leaving Mozart’s compositional method
unknown.80 The wind, comprising two basset-horns, two bassoons and
two horns striking even for a late-eighteenth-century rondò,81 assume
a pre-eminent position among orchestral participants: they frequently
appear as a six-instrument unit, often without the strings (especially in
the initial Larghetto); they receive virtuosic demisemiquavers, as well as
sfs and sfps; and they engage in intricate dialogue among themselves and
with the voice. Mozart apparently was striving not for consistency with the
1786 Figaro – the wind scoring of ‘Al desio’ has a stronger affinity with Così
than with the original Figaro production (see Table 9.1) – but for vibrant
voice-wind timbres that took into account the qualities of an individual
singer. Discussion of wind instrumentation between composer and per-
former is likely to have taken place during the compositional process given
the unusual scoring, the pronounced voice-wind interaction, and the aria’s
status as Mozart’s first for Ferrarese.
78
Heartz, Mozart, Haydn and Early Beethoven, p. 250.
79
On Mozart considering – but not implementing – a larger wind complement than originally
envisaged at bar 70 of ‘Una donna’ for Dorotea Bussani (Despina), see Woodfield, Così fan
tutte, p. 64. Woodfield (pp. 49–50) also provides autograph-based support for Mozart’s
development of ‘Una donna’ ‘in the light of views expressed by the singer, desirous perhaps of
something rather more substantial than originally planned’.
80
A sketch of the aria in Mozart’s hand has survived; see Janet K. Page and Dexter Edge, ‘A Newly
Uncovered Sketch for Mozart’s “Al desio di chi t’adora” K577’, Musical Times, 132 (1991), pp.
601–606.
81
Rice, Antonio Salieri and Viennese Opera, p. 482. The rondò often had obbligato wind parts: see
Parker, Remaking the Song, p. 63, and James Webster, ‘Aria as Drama’, in Anthony
R. DelDonna and Pierpaolo Polzonetti (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Eighteenth-
Century Opera (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 24–49, at 30.
Writing for Singers and Wind 431
The autographs of Ferrarese’s arias for Così, ‘Come scoglio’ (Act 1) and
‘Per pietà’ (Act 2), show the final wind scoring evolving over time, perhaps
in consultation with the singer. In ‘Come scoglio’, for example, clarinets
make a late entry into the wind ensemble. Mozart first envisaged using ten
of his twelve staves, leaving the top and bottom ones free in the initial brace
and assigning two for the two bassoons. Later, crossing out the original ‘2
fagotti’ notation, he wrote ‘2 fagotti’ next to the lower of the two bassoon
staves, freeing one up for an additional ‘2 clarinetti in B’. Presumably
Mozart made the adjustment here on the first page of the number in
order to alert the copyist to the wind instrumentation for the aria as
a whole: for the remaining fourteen pages in the autograph, the clarinets
are notated on the (originally empty) top line of the paper, with the original
brace extended upwards. Ink colours often make it difficult to distinguish
particella from completion phases of work on ‘Come scoglio’.82 But it is
clear that the clarinet notation derives from the completion: on two occa-
sions, tempo markings included in the particella (‘All:’ [allegro] and ‘più
All:’) encroach on the top stave of the paper, indicating that no clarinet
material had been written there yet.
In ‘Per pietà’, too, Mozart either temporarily remained undecided about
wind instrumentation or wanted to allow room for manoeuver. Woodfield
suggests that the autograph could have been produced from a working
draft: the consistency of the ink colour does indeed suggest notation in one
phase.83 Even if this is the case, Mozart kept open the option of adding
wind parts, by (unusually) leaving an empty stave in the middle of the page
rather than at the top or the bottom. The end of the aria – a tour de force for
winds and voice together – suggests singer-composer consultation before
‘Per pietà’ was finished: a three-bar exit passage was crossed out and
replaced by a more vocally virtuosic seven bars with trills, and an ostenta-
tious scale and arpeggio (see Example 9.3).84 In the deleted material,
Mozart (presumably inadvertently) slipped a stave when notating his
flute parts, writing them on the fifth and previously empty sixth staves
rather than the fourth and fifth, in continuing wind imitation of ascending
82
See Woodfield, Così fan tutte, p. 15, on some of the ink from the ‘Come scoglio’ particella fading
rapidly to a light brown.
83
Woodfield, Così fan tutte, p. 74.
84
Woodfield (Così fan tutte, p. 47) considers the revised ending of ‘Per pietà’ a ‘memorable
musical improvement’. He also points out (Così fan tutte, pp. 19, 42, 55–56) that in several arias
in Così (including ‘Per pietà’ and ‘Donne mie’), Mozart broke off work shortly before the end in
order to gauge the singer’s opinion before finishing it off.
Example 9.3 Mozart, ‘Per pietà’, from Così fan tutte, bars 112–121 (including deleted material).
semiquaver scales from clarinets to flutes across a page turn.85 The blank
sixth stave through almost all of ‘Per pietà’ leaves open the possibility of
adding presumably oboes – given the location of the empty stave under the
flutes and above the clarinets – if deemed desirable by composer and
performer. Once the ending and the wind scoring had been fixed, both
perhaps in consultation with Ferrarese or at least after Mozart had experi-
enced her voice, the final bars of the aria could be completed, which by then
had no need of a free stave in the middle of the score: for the last page of the
aria (comprising the final nine bars), the bottom stave is left vacant rather
than the sixth.86
Wind instrumentation in ‘Un moto di gioia’, written to replace ‘Venite
inginocchiatevi’ for the Figaro revival, may also have been either or both
a subject of discussion between Mozart and Ferrarese and a matter for
compositional contemplation. Mozart’s initial intention was to include one
flute, one oboe and one bassoon; the two horns, written on the top stave of
the autograph outside the original brace, came later. The first notation of
horn material is in the particella at bars 52–53 and 56–57 (Example 9.4):
the initial three bar-lines on the horn stave for that page of the autograph
are in the black ink of the completion phase (as is the extension of the brace
to include the horns), but the two four-quaver figures and the bar-lines in
between are in the sandy brown of the particella.87 So, the first genuinely
three-way strings-voice-winds dialogue, early in the reprise, coincides with
a decision to add two horns into the wind ensemble, an important textural
moment perhaps provoking a timbral adjustment ultimately to affect the
sound world of the aria once fully orchestrated. Thus, we catch Mozart –
midway through the particella – reflecting on the best wind scoring to
accompany Ferrarese’s voice. Edge explains that ‘Un moto di gioia’ was
written part way through the 1789–1791 revival run rather than before it
began.88 In consequence, Mozart’s experiences of Ferrarese blending with
85
See ‘Così’: Facsimile of the Autograph, pp. 453–454. In the revision, Mozart continued to notate
the flutes on these same staves for the remainder of the page.
86
‘Così’: Facsimile of the Autograph, p. 455. Mozart (accidentally in all likelihood) notates on only
ten staves for one page of ‘Per pietà’ (see Così: Facsimile of the Autograph, p. 442) and has to
indicate to the copyist here which staves comprise the flute, clarinet, bassoon and horn parts in
the middle of the score. On the next page, annotated wind-instrument names indicate a return
to the normal configuration of instruments and staves for this aria, with the sixth stave again
remaining free. Woodfield (Così fan tutte, p. 74) implies that the variable number of staves used
on pages of the ‘Per pieta’ autograph evidences a copying process on Mozart’s part.
87
‘Figaro’: Facsimile of the Autograph, vol. 1, p. 331. (The autograph of ‘Un moto di gioia’ is given
on pp. 327–334 of this volume.)
88
See Edge, ‘Mozart’s Viennese Copyists’, pp. 1687–1690, which addresses the date of the Mozart
letter in which ‘Un moto di gioia’ is mentioned.
Example 9.4 Mozart, ‘Un moto di gioia’, from Le nozze di Figaro, bars 51–58.
a rich complement of wind instruments in renditions of ‘Al desio’, ‘Come

scoglio’ and ‘Per pietà’ at the Burgtheater may have influenced decisions
about the wind scoring of this ostensibly light aria.89
Villeneuve’s blend with the wind is also a focus for attention during the
compositional process. In ‘È amore un ladroncello’, Dorabella’s ode to the
quixotic nature of love, Mozart probably remained undecided about wind
instrumentation during much of the particella phase: ‘1 flauto’ and ‘2
clarinetti in B’ were assigned to the fourth and fifth staves of the opening
brace in the black ink of the particella, but ‘2 oboe’, ‘2 fagotti’ and ‘2 corni in
B alti’ were annotated later (in a now faded ink) next to the seventh through
tenth staves.90 The first oboe part in bars 53–56 (see Example 9.5) was
written in the dark ink of the particella: it matches the ink of the interwoven
voice. Since the oboe is at the correct, non-transposing pitch here, written on
89
Mozart referred to ‘Un moto di gioia’ as an ‘Ariettchen’ (little aria). See MBA, vol. 4, p. 97; LMF,
p. 933.
90
See also Woodfield, Così fan tutte, pp. 65–68 for a discussion of the wind instrumentation in
this aria.
Example 9.5 Mozart, ‘È amore’, from Così fan tutte, bars 53–57.
the stave below the transposing clarinets, it must have been the intended
instrument from the moment of notation, Mozart adding to his wind cohort
midway through an aria particella for Villeneuve as for Ferrarese in ‘Un
moto di gioia’ and Nancy Storace in ‘Deh vieni’ as Susanna in the 1786 Figaro
(see Chapter 7). The crossing out of much of the string bass line from the
particella and the annotation ‘senza basso’ also directs attention to the voice-
wind timbre in the completion, giving singer and wind unencumbered
opportunities to shine together (Example 9.6).91 With the exception of
‘L’alma grande’ K. 578, an aria unlikely to have had positive associations
for Villeneuve on account of the unambiguous flop of Cimarosa’s I due
baroni, Mozart had not yet included oboes in an aria for her, perhaps
explaining initial uncertainty about their involvement in ‘È amore’.92
91
‘Tacet’ markings were later appended in another hand. For both Mozart’s markings, and those
in the unknown hand, see ‘Così’: Facsimile of the Autograph, vol. 2, pp. 500–501, 502–503,
506–507, 510–511.
92
On the failure of I due baroni, see Edge, ‘Mozart’s Viennese Copyists’, pp. 1874–1875.
Example 9.6 Mozart, ‘È amore’, from Così fan tutte, bars 10–15 (including deleted material).
Prominent wind participation is a feature of both ‘Chi sà, chi sà’, K. 582, and
‘Vado’, K. 583, scored for the double clarinet-bassoon-horn timbre favoured
in Così, including in exposed passages for voice and wind alone (as in ‘È
amore’). In the autograph of ‘Vado’, the blank ninth and tenth staves of the
twelve-stave brace93 allowed room for a bigger wind and brass complement
had it been desired. The wind of ‘Smanie implacabili’ – double clarinets,
bassoons and horns again – are generally less conspicuous than in Mozart’s
other arias for Villeneuve, but are still promoted timbrally in a four-bar
passage alone with the voice at the climax of the piece.
93
For the autograph of ‘Vado’, see Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Mus. ms. autogr. W. A. Mozart 583.
See also NMA, II/7/3–4, Kritische Berichte, p. 123.
The autographs of Mozart’s arias for Benucci and Calvesi also document
evolving views about wind instrumentation, perhaps in consultation with
the singers. If the rejection of ‘Rivolgete’ created the obvious absence of
a showstopping aria for Benucci, the inclusion of ‘Donne mie’ in Act 2 –
written very late in Così’s genesis94 – represented the equally obvious
solution. ‘Non siate ritrosi’, the replacement for ‘Rivolgete’ in Act 1, and
‘Donne mie’ could have been written close together, a reasonable hypoth-
esis in light of fundamental changes to the Guglielmo role, including the
late rejection of ‘Rivolgete’. Paper types at least provide no evidence to the
contrary.95 In spite of significant differences in the length, scale, affect and
heft of the finished arias, Mozart notated a ten-stave brace on the first pages
of both, leaving the top and bottom staves blank (Examples 9.7 and 9.8):
once the light wind scoring of a single flute and bassoon for ‘Non siate
ritrosi’ was confirmed, the seventh, eighth and ninth staves remained
unused (as well as the first and twelfth); and when trumpet and timpani
parts were added to two passages in ‘Donne mie’, at the top and bottom of
the score respectively, all twelve were employed. Perhaps Mozart kept
options open for ‘Non siate ritrosi’ to exhibit greater instrumental weight
than ultimately came to pass, until he had consulted Benucci about the aria
in isolation or in combination with ‘Donne mie’, or until he himself had
fully thought through the relationship between Benucci’s two arias.
The segments for trumpets and timpani add the kind of glitz and glamour
to ‘Donne mie’ that brings to mind Benucci’s ‘Non più andrai’ from Figaro
(scored for an identical wind complement plus timpani). This is especially
noticeable in the first passage for trumpets and timpani in ‘Donne mie’
(bars 59–71, Example 9.9): the full orchestra is initially set antiphonally
against the strident vocal line as in bars 43–53 of ‘Non più andrai’.
The absence of bar lines in the top and bottom trumpet and timpani staves
before their first segment in ‘Donne mie’ suggests Mozart conceived the
full effect only when orchestrating the passage.96 Thus, Mozart’s initial
conceptions of Benucci’s two arias in Così may not have been as far apart as
their finished versions, suggesting ongoing thoughts and refinements to
the Benucci/Guglielmo role during the compositional process for the two
arias, and beyond the point that ‘Rivolgete’ was rejected from the opera.
94
See Woodfield, Così fan tutte, pp. 54–55.
95
Tyson (Autograph Scores, p. 187) states that ‘Non siate ritrosi’ must have been written when Act
2 was ‘already well under way’ as ‘Atto Im°’ was written on the first page of the autograph.
96
Evolving views about wind participation in ‘Donne mie’ are also demonstrated in small
revisions to their parts; see ‘Così’: Facsimile of the Autograph, vol. 2, pp. 465–481.
Example 9.7 Mozart, ‘Non siate ritrosi’, from Così fan tutte, bars 1–4 (including blank staves at the top,
middle and bottom of the page, as in the autograph).
Example 9.8 Mozart, ‘Donne mie’, from Così fan tutte, bars 1–5 (including, as in the autograph, blank
staves at the top and bottom of the page and no indication of trumpet and timpani participation).
Example 9.9 Mozart, ‘Donne mie’, from Così fan tutte, bars 59–71 (with trumpets and timpani on the
top and bottom staves of the page, as in the autograph).
After the premiere of Così fan tutte 441
Mozart’s initial instincts for wind instrumentation in Calvesi’s three

arias are fairly uniform: double clarinets, bassoons and horns for ‘Un’
aura amorosa’ and ‘Tradito, schernito’; and double clarinets, bassoons
and trumpets in ‘Ah, lo veggio’. The brace at the opening of ‘Tradito’
does not include the two oboes, which ultimately appear on the clarinet
staves at the beginning of the C-major section when the latter are not
needed, accompanied by an ‘oboe dolce’ annotation, and on a single stave
when all eight wind play together in the last fifteen bars of the aria (the two
clarinets now occupying only one stave in order to accommodate the larger
wind complement).97 In ‘Ah, lo veggio’, Mozart originally wrote ‘2 fagotti’
between the seventh and eighth staves of the autograph, then crossed it out,
wrote ‘1 fagotti’ next to the seventh stave, and left the eighth blank.98
Ultimately, then, Mozart moves towards exploiting a more diverse range
of wind timbres in combination with Calvesi’s voice than originally envi-
saged. Whether cuts sanctioned by Mozart in the court theatre score of
‘Un’ aura amorosa’ can be attributed to easing the strain on the singer,
a matter of critical debate,99 they do not affect wind participation (with the
exception of a two-horn sustained note). In fact, the cut bars (50–57,
63–66) are the only substantial passages in the second statement of the
aria’s text not to feature prominent wind. Whatever Mozart’s motivation
for slightly shortening ‘Un’ aura amorosa’, he apparently wanted to protect
the impact of the wind.100
After the Premiere of Così fan tutte
Così was staged five times in its first seventeen days on the boards – 26, 28,
30 January; and 7, 11 February – and did very well. Both the box-office
receipts for the premiere, suggesting an attendance of around 1,000, and
the average receipts of these performances were the highest for any opera at
the Burgtheater in the 1789–1790 season.101 The publication of extracts
97
This last passage coincides with Calvesi’s climactic sustained g’s, bringing into alignment
peaks in vocal writing and size of participating wind cohort.
98
See ‘Cosi’: Facsimile of the Autograph, vol. 2, p. 419.
99
For differing arguments, see Edge, ‘Mozart’s Viennese Copyists’, p. 1952 (on the need to
eliminate Calvesi’s high notes); Woodfield, Così fan tutte, pp. 43, 158 (on the strain of the
Ferrando role on Calvesi); and Link, Arias for Vincenzo Calvesi, pp. ix–x (on Calvesi’s ability to
cope with Mozart’s music irrespective of the cuts made).
100
The cut to ‘Ah lo veggio’ in the performing score (bars 57–91) is more substantial than those
for ‘Un’ aura amorosa’ and consequently affects wind participation.
101
Edge, ‘Mozart’s Reception in Vienna, 1787–1791’, pp. 81, 110, 112.
from Così by Artaria soon after the premiere, including arias, duets, and
the march ‘Bella vita militar’, also testifies to the opera’s popularity.102
But Emperor Joseph II’s fatal illness and death prevented further perfor-
mances in the winter and spring. Handing over to a regency council on
29 January 1790 after a steady deterioration in the previous weeks, he was
given the last rites on 13 February and died a week later.103 The Burgtheater
shut up shop on 13 February, remaining closed for the rest of the season,
and reopened after Easter on 12 April at the beginning of the theatrical
season 1790–1791. Five more performances followed in the summer
(6, 12 June; 6 and 16 July; 7 August), traditionally the quietest time
of year for theatre attendance, yielding only small average receipts.104
Joseph’s successor, his brother Leopold II, preferred opera seria, ballet
and simpler opere buffe than Mozart offered; Così did not appear on the
Viennese stage again until 1794.105
An unlucky start for Così in Vienna prevented neither quick dissemina-
tion further afield nor critical acclaim. In 1791, Domenico Guardasoni’s
productions in Prague and Leipzig probably involved contact with Mozart
over the revised libretto and performance materials.106 The success of
Leipzig performances in 1792 and 1793 can be gauged by pieces from
Così dominating Leipzig Gewandhaus concerts at that time.107
The Dresden company, which began a production on 5 October 1791,
cut the opera radically to turn it into a star vehicle for the Fiordiligi,
Maddalena Allegranti,108 who Mozart had compared favourably to the
original Fiordiligi, Ferrarese, in 1789. The Journal des Luxus und der
Moden (1790) identified Così as ‘an excellent work . . . That the music is
by Mozart says everything, I think’.109 And the Musikalische Monatsschrift
(1792) reported that ‘[after] Le nozze di Figaro, an opera . . . [taking]
precedence over all Mozart’s theatrical works, . . . [Così] is unquestionably
the most excellent’, in which ‘the polyphonic areas . . . [have] a force and
beauty better felt than described’.110
The main problem with Così for early audiences – as for later ones – was
the text. In the Annalen des Theaters (Berlin), it is a ‘wretched, southern
European product with the powerful, elevated music of a Mozart’ and in
102
Brown, Così fan tutte, p. 165. 103 Heartz, Mozart, Haydn and Early Beethoven, p. 257.
104
Edge, ‘Mozart’s Reception in Vienna, 1787–1791’, p. 100.
105
Brown, Così fan tutte, pp. 163–165. 106 See Woodfield, Così fan tutte, pp. 183–188.
107
Woodfield, Performing Operas for Mozart, p. 181.
108
Woodfield, Performing Operas for Mozart, p. 182. 109 MDL, pp. 318–319; MDB, p. 363.
110
As given in Gruber, Mozart and Posterity, p. 38, and Goehring, Three Modes of Perception in
Mozart, p. 21.
the diary of Countess Maria Sidonia Chotek it is ‘pitiful’ (pitoyable).111

The distinguished German actor and theatre manager Friedrich Schröder
described it in his journal (28 April 1791) as a ‘miserable thing, debasing to
all women. It cannot be a success, for no woman in the audience will like it’.
The Journal des Luxus und der Moden (1792) also called it ‘the silliest
rubbish in the world, and it draws an audience only because of the splendid
music’.112 Niemetschek and Arnold later issued similar criticisms.113 Even
Constanze was unimpressed: ‘She does not much admire the plot of “Cosi
fan”, but agreed with me that such music would carry any piece.’114
The idea of the story being based on an incident at a masked ball at the
Redoutensaal, subsequently remembered by the emperor and turned into
an opera at his request, only surfaced in 1837 and is almost certainly
apocryphal.115 But the quick redistribution of affections in Così may not
have been as far divorced from reality as it seemed to some. In Vienna in
1783 it was reported that men ‘consider us [women] to be living dolls,
created for their pastime; when they have amused themselves with one doll
for a while they tire of it and seek out another, in which the allurement of
novelty will captivate them for an equally short time’.116 And in July 1790
halfway around the world in Sydney Bay, with nautical echoes of Ferrando
and Guglielmo’s departure from Dorabella and Fiordiligi, a Così-like
scenario was playing itself out. A Scot by the name of John Nichol, steward
on the Lady Julian ship shepherding female convicts from England to
Australia, had fallen in love with one of his charges, Sarah Whitelam; she
gave birth to their son in Rio de Janeiro, en route to the penal colony.
Nichol was contractually obliged to continue on the ship’s journey beyond
Sydney to Canton, so he and Sarah sadly took leave of each other:
‘We exchanged faith – she promised to remain true and I promised to
111
MDL, p. 346, MDB, p. 395; and ‘Report of the First Performance of Così fan tutte’ in
Dexter Edge and David Black (eds.), Mozart: New Documents, first published 12 June 2014.
http://dx.doi.org/10.7302/Z20P0WXJ
112
Both as quoted in Braunbehrens, Mozart in Vienna, p. 337. For the Schröder quotation, see
also MDL, p. 346; MDB, p. 394.
113
Niemetschek, Leben, p. 29, Life of Mozart, p. 38; Arnold, Mozarts Geist, p. 390.
114
In conversation with Vincent Novello; see Hughes (ed.), A Mozart Pilgrimage, p. 94. A similar
remark in Nissen (Biographie W. A. Mozarts, p. 544) presumably also carried Constanze’s
stamp of approval.
115
For a report of the story, see in particular Brown and Rice, ‘Salieri’s Così fan tutte’, pp. 17–18.
See also Dent, Mozart’s Operas, p. 189; Einstein, Mozart: His Character, His Work,
pp. 458–459; Landon, The Golden Years, p. 174.
116
As given in translation in Lütteken, ‘Così fan tutte and the Reverse of the Enlightenment’,
p. 236.
return when her time expired and bring her back to England.’ The day after
he set sail from Sydney, she married another man.117
Following a rough ride for Così in the nineteenth century, with
entrenched negativity towards the story occasionally catalysing criticism of
the music,118 landmark revivals by Richard Strauss in 1897 and at the first
ever Glyndebourne season in 1934 began the process of rehabilitation.119
Così’s rebirth in modern musicology – its rich musical and literary allu-
sions, contexts and relationships providing an ideal subject for study – can
also be attributed to our renewed intellectual and aesthetic appreciation of
the power and beauty of individual moments in the opera and indeed in
Mozart’s music in general.120 There is a historical basis too for this mode of
understanding. Perhaps with Arnold’s Mozarts Geist (1803) in mind,
where Così is described as a collection of individual beauties rather than
a coherent work of art, the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung explained
(1804): ‘It seems to me that in criticism of Mozart’s operas we are too
enraptured by the great and excellent totalities and too negligent of the
beautiful details, in which resides infinitely more of merit, genius, and
117
See Siân Rees, The Floating Brothel: the Extraordinary True Story of an 18th-Century Ship and
Its Cargo of Female Convicts (London: Headline Book Publishing, 2001), especially pp.
221–222. See also John Howell (ed.), The Life and Adventures of John Nichol, Mariner
(Edinburgh, 1822), pp. 108ff. The story did not end well for Nichol. He spent much of the years
ahead trying unsuccessfully to travel back to Australia to locate Sarah (who by 1796 had
departed for Bombay with her husband and children), apparently without ever finding out that
she had married.
118
See remarks by Edward Holmes (The Life of Mozart [1845], ed. Christopher Hogwood
[London: Folio Society, 1991], p. 274), as well as Wagner and Hanslick, given in Gernot
Gruber, Mozart and Posterity, pp. 163, 140. For a substantial Briefwechsel about Così in the
Berlinische musikalische Zeitung (1805), probably authored by Johann Friedrich Reichardt and
swimming against the critical tide in associating the opera with romantic irony, see Edmund
J. Goehring, ‘Much Ado About Something; or, Così fan tutte in the Romantic Imagination:
a Translation of an Early Nineteenth-Century Critique of the Opera’, Eighteenth-Century
Music, 5 (2008), pp. 91–105.
119
Already in 1936, the Glyndebourne Così was considered responsible for ‘blowing away all
scepticism’ about the opera; see ‘“Don Giovanni” at Glyndebourne’, Musical Times, 77 no. 6
(1936), p. 553. Although the quality of Mozart’s music was rarely doubted in the early to mid-
twentieth century, the libretto received mixed reports. For positive evaluations, see Dent,
Mozart’s Operas, p. 190 and Einstein, Mozart: His Character, His Work, pp. 459–460; for
negative remarks, see Abert, W. A. Mozart, p. 805 and Gerald Abraham, ‘The Operas’, in
The Mozart Companion, p. 313.
120
On the latter, including discussion of Così, see in particular Scott Burnham, Mozart’s Grace
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), and Burnham, ‘Mozart’s felix culpa: Così fan
tutte and the Irony of Beauty’, Musical Quarterly, 78 (1994), pp. 77–98; also reprinted in Keefe
(ed.), Mozart, pp. 227–248. On the power of the moment in Così specifically, see Norbert
Miller, ‘Toying with the Emotions: Da Ponte’s and Mozart’s School for Lovers’, in ‘Così’:
Facsimile of the Autograph, vol. 3, pp. 9–10.
creative power.’121 Composer, singers and instrumentalists created Così’s

remarkable moments together. In the quartet ‘Di scrivermi’, where two
clarinets and two bassoons added late at the top and bottom of the
autograph provide delicate timbral support for the voices rather than
independent lines, Constanze claimed the ‘sobs and tears of the perfor-
mers’ could actually be heard and seen.122 In the quintet ‘Sento oddio’,
which holds ‘laughter and sympathy in a beautiful equilibrium’ and causes
one mid-nineteenth-century fictional character to faint at a ‘sublime’
moment,123 Mozart requires performers to contribute actively to realizing
a gorgeous climactic effect: when the five come together for the very first
time in the opera, a quiet impassioned sotto voce is followed by sf – p in
voices as well as instruments, inflecting to the relative minor to coincide
with the collective explanation that human pleasures have been under-
mined by the impending departure of Ferrando and Guglielmo. And,
when required, compositional attractiveness may have been sacrificed to
performers’ capabilities, including the canon in the Act 2 finale (‘E nel tuo,
nel mio bicchiero’, bars 173–207) that was cut possibly because singers
found it too difficult.124 Mozart pointed out in 1784 that ease and effort-
lessness in performance came about only through hard work: in response
to pianist Georg Friedrich Richter’s comment about Mozart making key-
board playing look very easy, he replied that ‘I had to work hard in order to
be allowed no longer to have to work hard.’125 Evidence from the auto-
graph of instrumentation and instrumental effects evolving over time bears
witness to similar compositional application to achieve fluency in his
writing for specific singers. Ultimately, the special poignancy of wind
writing reveals as strong a familial bond between Così and Don Giovanni
as between Così and Figaro: it is Don Giovanni’s beautiful daughter as
much as Figaro’s dark but emollient sibling.
121
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 6 (1803–1804), col. 421.
122
In conversation with Vincent Novello; see Hughes (ed.), A Mozart Pilgrimage, p. 94; also in
Landon, 1791: Mozart’s Last Year, p. 207.
123
See Rosen, Classical Style, p. 317; and ‘The Story of “The Requiem”’, in E. Littell (compiler),
Littell’s Living Age, 26 (Boston, 1850), pp. 37–44 at 38. This story is described, and set in the
context of legends surrounding the Requiem, in Keefe, Mozart’s Requiem, pp. 27–28.
124
On the replacement of the canon from the Act 2 finale with a new thirteen-bar passage, as
conveyed in the Burgtheater score OA 146, and including suggestions that singers had
problems with it, see Tyson, Autograph Scores, pp. 199, 204; Faye Ferguson and Wolfgang
Rehm, ‘Vorwort’, NMA II/5/18/1–2, p. xxviii. See also Edge, ‘Mozart’s Viennese Copyists’,
p. 1923; Woodfield, Così fan tutte, p. 179.
125
Mozart reports the conversation to Leopold in MBA, vol. 3, p. 312; LMF, p. 875
(28 April 1784).
Mozart’s life in opera would have further twists and turns in 1791, both
at a new Viennese venue (for him) and in Prague. Without knowing it,
though, he bade farewell to the Burgtheater when the Figaro revival
finished on 9 February 1791.126 His relationship with the vibrant, colourful,
hectic, frustrating and rewarding operatic world at this most prestigious of
theatres, and his extraordinary collaboration with Da Ponte who was
himself dismissed by Leopold II in 1791, were now at an end.127
126
‘Che soave zeffiretto’, now included in a revised L’ape musicale, was probably Mozart’s final
operatic piece to be heard at the Burgtheater during his lifetime, on 9 April 1791. See
Woodfield, Cabals and Satires.
127
On Da Ponte’s dismissal, see Sheila Hodges, Lorenzo Da Ponte: The Life and Times of Mozart’s
Librettist (London: Granada, 1985), pp. 106–113. For further background, focusing on
a pamphlet from 1791 severely critical of Da Ponte, see Anti-Da Ponte, trans. and ed. Lisa
de Alwis (Malden, MA: Mozart Society of America, 2015).

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9 The Figaro Revival and Così Fan Tutte

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9 The Figaro Revival and Così fan tutte

The Italian Opera company’s theatrical season 1789–1790 at the

Mozart’s ﬁrst assignment of the 1789–1790 season was the revival of Le

but ‘Dove sono’ is transmitted in the original Burgtheater performing

build on earlier dialogue with the voice, including imitation immediately

Act 2 are on Type II paper.33 Philological evidence suggests a two-stage

unrelieved competitiveness on Mozart’s and Da Ponte’s parts’: plot

method in singing received the undivided approbation of the numerous

analogous ﬂorid embellishments, and individual pause bars carrying oppor-

Writing for Wind

A comparison between wind instrumentation in Le nozze di Figaro and

Cosi fan tutte (1789–1790),

1ﬂ, 1ob, 1cl, 1bsn, 2hns 1 (No. 11 ‘Voi che sapete’)

Table 9.1 (cont.)

Cosi fan tutte (1789–1790),

Table 9.1 (cont.)

Cosi fan tutte (1789–1790),

2cls, 2bsns, 2trs 1 (No. 18, Act 1 ﬁnale, Andante,

Reitzenstein).73 The gentle qualities of the three individual instruments may

Writing for Singers and Wind

a rich complement of wind instruments in renditions of ‘Al desio’, ‘Come

Mozart’s initial instincts for wind instrumentation in Calvesi’s three

After the Premiere of Così fan tutte

the diary of Countess Maria Sidonia Chotek it is ‘pitiful’ (pitoyable).111

creative power.’121 Composer, singers and instrumentalists created Così’s

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