Temptation Mozart

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Robert Carsen's interpretation of Mozart is well known to La Scala audiences, following his Don Giovanni, which was full of mirrors, reflections and theatre within theatre, which opened the 2011 season with Daniel Barenboim and returned in 2017 and 2022. As for Le nozze di Figaro, his production, which premiered in Bordeaux in 1993, has toured half of Europe, and next year he will stage a new co-production between the Teatro Real in Madrid and the Metropolitan in New York. He has never staged Così fan tutte, but he has loved it ever since he worked on it in Spoleto in 1978 as Giorgio De Lullo's assistant.

MP Così fan tutte is also somewhat “philosophical”, a sort of social experiment. Do you think there is a moral to the story?

RC The theme of love and the meaning of a relationship is too complex to be reduced to a moral. Don Alfonso, after all, stages one deception to expose another. He wants these young people to wake up and learn a lesson. He tries to show them human nature so that they enter married life with greater awareness and tolerance and can forgive each other. Only in this way can their bond last when the initial passion has faded. “The School for Lovers” is the alternative title that Da Ponte gave the opera. It is therefore a school of love, but also a school for the future, a way of understanding what one should expect from the other person. We often fall in love with an image we project onto the other person, not with who they really are. The problem in relationships is accepting the other person for who they are, not for who we would like them to be.

MP And this brings us to the theme of identity, and disguise, to the fact that the characters mask themselves and then end up confusing themselves with their own disguises.

RC Returning to the first question, disguise is also a common element in all three works. In Don Giovanni, we have Leporello and Don Giovanni swapping costumes; in Le nozze, Susanna and the Countess swap dresses; in Così fan tutte, Despina plays two different characters, and more significantly, the two boys return disguised as other men. The theme of “who we really are” is a central issue for Mozart and Da Ponte.

MP Così fan tutte (That's how women are), but also Così fan tutti (That's how men are). Is it wrong to see misogyny in this opera, as is often done?

RC Yes, but it's a delicate issue because it can indeed appear that way, but it's important to avoid this interpretation. After all, the first time that loyalty is mentioned, it is Despina who speaks of it in reference to men, and they are certainly not models of consistency. The question therefore applies to both sexes—men and women.

MP How do you explain why Fiordiligi and Dorabella, despite their intentions, give in so quickly to their new lovers?

RC The two girls simply find these new men more attractive than their fiancés. They actually fall in love with them. If you think about it, we don't know much about their previous relationships, we only know that they are well-established, perhaps a little tired. These two “strangers”, on the other hand, represent a completely different experience. They are more direct, more sensual, they don't hide behind conventions. From the outset, they are very physical, they ask for a kiss, which, in reality, means much more than a kiss. I think the two girls find this extremely exciting. But the interesting thing is that the two boys also change. At first, it's just a bet, there's a competition between them. Who will be able to seduce the other's girlfriend? But then something changes. They realise that they too are attracted to the other girl, and the experiment reveals something about them as well.

MP Partner swapping is typical of classical comedy, but at the same time it is a very topical concept, increasingly present in discussions about “modern love”, along with the theme of open relationships and much more.

RC In this case, however, it is not exactly a “couple swap” as we understand it today, where everyone is aware and consenting. Here it is different: the girls believe they have two new suitors, while the boys know full well that they are deceiving them to win a bet. It is something more harmful, morally and psychologically.

MP Let's move on to Despina and Don Alfonso. She seems like an almost amoral figure, while he is a cynical philosopher.

RC Despina, as she is written, is a very practical woman who has experience. In a certain sense, she has already attended the “school of lovers”, and I imagined her to be older than she is typically portrayed. Don Alfonso, on the other hand, acts as a headmaster of this school. There are many ways to interpret him. One might think of him as a bitter man who has already experienced love and now enjoys, almost cynically, testing or destroying the relationships of younger people. However, his actions are not based in cruelty, although there is clearly an element of manipulation—it is part of the game.

MP And how did you interpret the “game” in this new production?

RC I decided to set the whole story in the world of television, as if the protagonists were contestants on a reality show focused on love: Temptation Island, Love Island, Love Is Blind, Too Hot to Handle, The Bachelor, Perfect Match, Are You the One? and so on. Television programmes and streaming platforms are flooded with formats of this type. Ours is called “La scuola degli amanti” (The School of Lovers), and it puts couples to the test, testing their strength and exposing them to temptations to see what happens. In Così fan tutte, we have two couples who agree--whether consciously or not--to put their love to the test. In short, the principle is the same. Everyone takes part in an experiment in which they discover aspects of themselves and their partner that they did not know. And, like with reality TV, they do not know exactly what will happen or how they will react. Following this format, Despina and Don Alfonso become the hosts of the show, no longer a maid and a philosopher, but rather two presenters on equal footing. She is the practical, ironic soul, and he is the strategist, the observer. Together they guide the game, orchestrate it and comment on it.

MP And what do they win?

RC Well, it should be a cash prize, right? The opera constantly talks about money: bets, payments, debts. And this is very topical. Today, the value of love is constantly under threat. We live in a world where people want to get rich instantly and become as famous as possible on social media, getting views, likes, and clicks. In this world, public recognition matters more than the truth of our feelings, however painful. In this context, washing your dirty laundry in public becomes a positive rather than a negative thing. Just think of the case of Montoya from the Spanish edition of Temptation Island.

MP “Montoya, por favor.”

RC That's right, episodes like this give rise to viral memes, moments when personal tragedies become entertainment. It's a phenomenon that fascinates me. The transformation of pain and failure into mass entertainment. In our production, we have mixed many formats of this type, and they all share the same obsession: putting feelings to the test in front of an audience.

MP Do you think this type of reality show has a similar effect on today's audience as Così fan tutte had on audiences in the 18th century?

RC My job as a director is not to look for historical equivalences, but to make the material alive and relevant to today's viewers. Human beings, after all, have not changed. They feel the same emotions and have the same fragilities. What has changed is the world around us, the way we relate to each other, and the social and media forms of love, jealousy, and shame. Given all of this, reality television seemed an interesting approach. We'll see if it works.

MP On the other hand, Così fan tutte, even more so than Le Nozze di Figaro, is built not so much on a complex plot, but on a single major situation that unfolds before our eyes.

RC It is not so much a plot as a process. We see the characters reveal themselves, put themselves to the test, and face their own contradictions. It is a direct, almost “live” observation of the mechanisms of love. In our show, we also show the behind-the-scenes of the programme, alternating between what happens on stage and what happens off stage.

MP So Don Alfonso and Despina are not just manipulators, but are emotionally involved in the process.

RC We could have interpreted them as two characters who are bitter and angry with life, but that was not how we understood them. They are not simply cynical figures who enjoy destroying young people's lives; they observe them, comment on them, and in their own way, they help them. If you think about how these programmes work, sometimes the presenters almost take on the role of psychologist. So, Così fan tutte becomes an opera about the search for one's identity as well, a journey in which the characters discover themselves, just like with certain reality shows in which--setting aside the manipulation of television--someone learns something about themselves. However, we must not forget that television presenters also have ratings, and that, perhaps more than the contestants, they must appeal to the audience. This is why they are willing to mask the reality of their feelings.

MP How do you interpret the closing lines of the piece, “Fortunate is the man who takes / Everything in a good way”?

RC It is a moment when the theatre breaks the fourth wall and connects directly with the audience, inviting them to reflect on what they have just seen and how it mirrors real life. Theatre, after all, is an ephemeral medium, a metaphor for life itself. It is brief and unrepeatable; life, however, has no rehearsals. In every show, even in a comedy, the audience witnesses often extreme human behaviour, which they may never experience first-hand, but in which they recognise themselves. It is the same mechanism that originated with Greek theatre: through the actions of others, the spectator learns and experiences vicariously. But, although the experiences of the four young lovers may be painful, we must not forget that Mozart and Da Ponte set out to write a comedy. However, this is based on real feelings – a sort of Chekhov avant la lettre – and therefore a final chorus on the absurdity of love and life is not at all out of place, especially in the crucial moment when every production must decide exactly how to end the comedy…

Mattia Palma