'
'Cosi fan tutte,' his next work, was produced at Vienna in January,
1790. It has never been so successful as its two predecessors, chiefly
on account of its libretto, which, though a brisk little comedy of
intrigue, is almost too slight to bear a musical setting. The plot
turns upon a wager laid by two young officers with an old cynic of their
acquaintance to prove the constancy of their respective sweethearts.
After a touching leave-taking they return disguised as Albanians and
proceed to make violent love each one to the other's _fiancee_. The
ladies at first resist the ardent strangers, but end by giving way, and
the last scene shows their repentance and humiliation when they discover
that the too attractive foreigners are their own lovers after all. There
is much delightful music in the work, and it is greatly to be regretted
that it should have been so completely cast into the shade by 'Le Nozze
di Figaro,'
Mozart's next opera, 'La Clemenza di Tito,' was hastily written, while
he was suffering from the illness which in the end proved fatal. The
libretto was an adaptation of an earlier work by Metastasio. Cold and
formal, and almost totally devoid of dramatic interest, it naturally
failed to inspire the composer. The form in which it was cast compelled
him to return to the conventions of opera seria, from which he had long
escaped, and altogether, as an able critic remarked at the time, the
work might rather be taken for the first attempt of budding talent than
for the product of a mature mind.
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