Photo by Philip Newton c/o Seattle Opera
My daughter was scandalized when she saw the Seattle Opera poster for “Cosí fan Tutte – Mozart’s Comedy About Sex.”
She was even more scandalized when she found out I had tickets.
If I’ve been doing my job right as a parent, I think the plot would offend her as much as it did the Victorians, who bowdlerized it. But where the Victorians were appalled by the opera’s depiction of women as subject to sexual desire – and gasp – acting on it, I would hope my 21st century daughter would be at least as offended by the free pass it gives the manipulative and judgmental men in the story as by the women’s weak commitment to monogamy.
But, if I had taken her to see the opera, I think she would have loved it. Read More