ABSTRACT
Mozart's operas with Da Ponte did not belong to any one particular literary, philosophical or cultural movement, but arose from the tensions between several. Their genre was that of both German Singspiel and Italian opera, in both its buffa and seria forms. This synthesis is marked up on the title pages of Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte, on which they are both called 'dramma giocosa'. In Don Giovanni sexuality is either imbued with violence or unrealizable. Either way it is a source of nothing but misery, as is underlined by the largely nocturnal mise-en-scène. Whereas Don Giovanni concerns masculine sexuality, Così is all about femininity and ideal love. Dorabella and Guglielmo's music of sensuous flirtation is little more than a foil for the infinitely richer music of the ideal love between Fiordiligi and Ferrando. The opera leaves nothing but doubt about its implied future.
