Cosi fan tutte Dramma giocoso in due Atti... Partitura... Weibertreue oder die Madchen sind von Flandern komische Opera in Zwey Aufzugen. [KV 588]

Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel. [1810]. First edition. Folio. 2 volumes: 1f. (title), 3-153 pp., [i] (blank); 155-269 pp. Both engraved. [PN] 1363. Text in both Italian and German. Each volume in green printed wrappers, laid down/rebacked, the two volumes contained in a fine custom box, marbled paper over green leather with title plate to spine and front. Hirsch II 633 and Plate XXIII. Sonneck Dramatic Music p. 116. Hoboken Catalogue Vol. 12, 421 (containing both the text of the separately-paginated libretto and an additional title preceding the second act, not found in the present copy). RISM M4693.


First edition of the full orchestral score, preceded by the piano-vocal score (Leipzig, 1794) & piano-vocal excerpts (Berlin, 1793; Vienna, 1790). 50 or fewer copies of this edition were likely printed.


Mozart’s final collaboration with the Italian librettist Lorenzo da Ponte was premiered on January 26, 1790 at The Burghtheater, Vienna. "Only the present century has taken a serious interest in Cosi fan Tutte. At first it was considered a heartless farce clothed in miraculous music... for an increasing number of commentators [it is] the profoundest of his Italian comedies" (Grove, Opera: 967-68).


"Da Ponte’s libretto is a marvel of witty, concise, and symmetrical dramatic construction - a standing rebuttal to those who believe that all opera librettos are fustian and second-rate stagecraft… In the music, all the conflicting strains of mockery and tenderness, of sincerity and inconstancy, are fully reconciled. Delicious in its parody, ravishing in its lyricism, Così holds laughter and sympathy in a perfect equilibrium that, in critic Joseph Kerman’s phrase, celebrates ‘the mystery of feeling itself.’” (Zaslaw & Cowdery, "The Compleat Mozart," p. 64-65) (11154)

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Printed Music

Opera

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