ABSTRACT
Wolfgang Hildesheimer detects a kind of superior parody, a "parody as discipline," in the fact that Leopold Mozart portrays feigned emotions with genuine expression. E. T. A. Hoffmann was presumably reacting to the almost exaggerated levels of dramatic irony that abound in Cosi, irony directly attributable to the libretto. Analogically, the characters of Cosi can be seen as puppets in a state of innocence. This innocence is embodied in their tacit assumption of ideal love, their trust in the idea of love as predestined and eternal. The libretto furnishes Mozart with the opportunity to achieve an all-embracing irony even more fundamental than its over-arching dramatic irony: by providing for an illusion that the music will then transform into truth, the libretto gives Mozart's music space enough to simulate the irony of human consciousness. Generations of critics have treated Mozart's last Da Ponte opera as a transgression, a fall from the heights established by Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni.
