With librettist Lorenzo da Ponte (who was born in the Republic of Venice in 1749 and died in Manhattan in 1838, after a life often described as “colorful”--born a Jew, ordained a priest, that sort of thing), Mozart wrote three operas: The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi fan Tutte.   Think the last of these masterpieces is the lightest?  You’d better think again.  The composer wrote the opera a year before he died, when he had some serious thoughts on his mind—not the least of which were the wife-swapping and bad-faith loving that his worldly librettist proposed.

In the hands of conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Mozart’s weighty but musically luscious opera buffa comes into crisp focus, in this 2000 production from the Zurich Opera, set in an institution plainly described in the opera’s subtitle, “The School for Lovers.”  Chief lover, and the love of opera fans the world over, is renowned soprano Cecilia Bartoli, who makes her debut as Fiordiligi here, after having previously sung the two other Cosi roles, Despina and Dorabella.

The Zurich Opera's Cosi fan Tutte with Cecilia Bartoli comes to Classical TV later this week...

  La Bartoli