Practicing Progress : The Promise and Limitations of Enlightenment. Festschrift for John A. McCarthy

ISBN-13: 9789042021464 / Angielski / Miękka / 2007 / 234 str.

Richard E. Schade; Dieter Sevin

Opis

The essay reads an Enlightened and modern critique of progress in Mozart's Cos fan tutte. With numerous references to other operas and texts, and with a storyline that emphasizes inevitable, yet mutable aspects of human nature, Cos presents an ambivalent picture of the ways in which even the most disinterested and best-informed attitude toward the past can affect the future. At the same time, the opera seems to embrace the notion of freedom of choice without rejecting tradition or repetition. The essay also comments on the performance of Cos in Zurich in 2000, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who often works with authentic period instruments.