On 20 April tenor Stanislav Leontiev will be performing the role of Ferrando in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera Così fan tutte for the first time.
Legend has it that the plot of the opera to a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte was based on an occurrence that took place not long before at the court of Emperor Joseph II. However that may be, da Ponte and Mozart’s commission to compose a comedy came from the Emperor himself. Possibly the Emperor had been encouraged to do so following the tremendous success of Mozart’s previous opera – Le nozze di Figaro. Mozart was offered a relatively high fee – two hundred ducats.
Così fan tutte has been performed at theatres throughout the world under such a huge variety of names unknown to any other opera in the history of the genre. For example, in America it was known as Women Are like That. In Britain it was known as Favour for Favour. In Germany it had a dozen different titles including such highly improbable ones as Who Won the Bet, The Girls’ Revenge and even The Partisans. In Denmark this Mozartian opera was known as Flight from the Monastery, in France it was called The Chinese Labourer and – fifty years later – Fruitless Efforts at Love and in Russia it was performed as That’s What All Women Do. Meanwhile, the original secondary title explains that it is a Scuola degli amanti (School for Lovers).
The elderly sceptical and cynical philosopher Don Alfonso proposes that the two friends Ferrando and Guglielmo test the love and fidelity of the sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella. They are to be convinced through experience that women are frivolous and that their fidelity is, at best, doubtful.
Apropos, it is not just Fiordiligi and Dorabella who exhibit frivolity here – their fiancés do too. And the theme of the opera is not so much woman’s frivolity as the inconsistency of the heart and the unknown nature of love’s laws.
Critics have noted the “enchanting timbre of voice, subtle musicality and charming appearance” of tenor Stanislav Leontiev who will be appearing for the first time as Ferrando at the Mariinsky Theatre. On 22 April the singer will be making his debut as Rinuccio in Puccini’s opera Gianni Schicchi.
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