Character and Character Swapping in Mozart's Così fan tutte

Abstract

This chapter on Mozart’s opera Così fan tutte (“Thus Do They All”) offers a discussion of a number of topics covered by other chapters—the portrayal of fictional characters, mixed motivation, promise keeping, the influence of character, and situational variables, respectively, in determining behavior and individual differences among people. Così’s libretto is about two couples who swap partners. Così is typically seen as a character-swapping farce, with one-dimensional characters. The chapter quotes Peter Kivy, according to whom the heroes and heroines are not even real characters—rather, they are voices: the soprano, the mezzo-soprano, the heroic tenor, and so on. The chapter, however, makes a compelling case that this is not so. The opera has a moral seriousness often overlooked by interpreters due to lack of attention to the individual differences among the characters and to character development.