Klarinet Archive - Posting 000956.txt from 2001/02

From: Daniel Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Cosi fan tutte
Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 16:39:44 -0500

I am sitting here on Saturday afternoon listening to Cosi in the live
Met broadcast and was fascinated by two things.

First, in the second act, the very rarely performed aria "Ah lo veggio"
was just performed by the tenor. This is the aria whose melody was
originally planned as the last movement of K. 581 but, for whatever
reason, Mozart changed his mind. There is a manuscript of the first
dozen measures or so for clarinet in A and string quartet.

Second, the singers are doing a great deal of ornamenting not found in
the score. In effect, the impact of scholarship on the duties of the
performer to become part of the creative process are now part and parcel
of the Metropolitan Opera House's production. And that is remarkable,
because only 10 years ago the very idea of a singer improvising on the
tune or adding anything whatsoever to what was in the score would have
been considered both unthinkable and a calamitous mistake.

Unless you know the opera intimately, you would not know that there was
considerable improvisation, which is the way it should be. If you
recognize that it's happening and become distracted by it, then the
performer is probably doing too much of it.

Now when I hear the orchestral performers departing from the printed
line, I'll realize that they have really taken a giant step forward.

AS I listen to this remarkable opera, I become more and more convinced
that it is Mozart's finest operatic contribution. It's a chamber opera.

What is amazing is that it was never performed at the Met prior to
around 1936. First the plot was considered scandalous (wife-swapping)
and there were no BIG ensembles that you might find in Figaro and Don
Giovanni.

It is a bit of irony that the librettist for the opera is buried in
Calvary Catholic cemetery in Queens, which is part of New York City. He
can practically hear it from there.
--
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** Dan Leeson **
** leeson0@-----.net **
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