The subtitle of Mozart’s Don Giovanni is ‘Il dissoluto punito’ (the rake punished), that of Rossini’s La Cenerentola is ‘La bontà in trionfo’ (goodness triumphant), while Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea might well be subtitled ‘Vice rewarded’.
The subtitle of Mozart’s Don Giovanni is ‘Il dissoluto punito’ (the rake punished), that of Rossini’s La Cenerentola is ‘La bontà in trionfo’ (goodness triumphant), while Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea might well be subtitled ‘Vice rewarded’. They are the three operas that Glyndebourne is taking round the country this year, whether with moralistic intent I don’t know.
Large school parties attend these performances, and are extraordinarily well behaved in my experience; if they have any developed aesthetic judgment they would see that Monteverdi’s shocking opera, in which two vicious characters begin happily, and get ever happier as they dispose of such human obstacles as wife, teacher, fiancé, ending with Poppea’s becoming Empress and singing one of the most moving of all love duets, is far more convincing than the other two, where dei ex machina have to be recruited to balance the moral books.
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