Mozart And Women
In Mozart's time (the late 1700s), women were
viewed much differently than they
are viewed today. Women were perceived as
being inferior (intellectually and
physically) to men. As we all know, the
women were supposed to spend their time
in the house cleaning, cooking, and
taking care of the children. Although, we
must take into account that this
was mostly the biased perspective of the men of
the time. As time progressed,
the submissive female role changed. Their presence
became much more prevalent
as time went on. Mozart's apparent personal
perspective of women, which was
demonstrated in his many operas, did not seem to
correlate with the universal
perspective of woman at the time. His perspective
of women portrayed in The
Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni is much more like
today's perspective
than the perspective of his time. In The Marriage of Figaro,
the women are
portrayed as intelligent, cunning, wise, and faithful. In The
Marriage of
Figaro, the women are presented with the problem of dealing with
their
jealous and lustful husbands. Ironically, it is the "lower
class" woman,
Susanna, who provides the needed leadership and wisdom when
it comes to
solving the problem. She is the one that comes up with the idea to
change
clothes with the Countess to test the fidelity and loyalty of the
Count.
It might have been expected for a man to come up with a plan so
clever, or at
least for the upper class and supposedly more intelligent
Countess to come up
with the idea, but low and behold, the "lowly" servant
comes through
with the great idea. In comparison with the males in the opera,
the women are
portrayed with much more fidelity and loyalty especially
towards their spouses.
The men are portrayed as foolish, lustful, and
jealous when it comes to love.
The Count is the worst - he displays
lustfulness, jealousy and above all,
hypocrisy. He lusts after Susanna and
expects her to break her promise of
fidelity to her fiancé Figaro. He also
gets jealous when Cherubino tries to
court the Countess. By doing this, he
creates a double standard for him and the
Countess. He feels that he
should be allowed to act unfaithfully, while his wife
is to remain completely
faithful. The Count also portrays a very deceitful side
when tries to entice
Susanna. He puts on a façade just to convince her to sleep
with him.
Susanna's also portrays a somewhat deceitful side, although hers is
there to
expose the deceitfulness of the Count. In Don Giovanni, the women in
the
opera are portrayed somewhat, although not entirely different than they
are
in The Marriage of Figaro. They do not seem to be on the same level of
wisdom
and intelligence as they were in Don Giovanni. On the other hand, the
men are
also portrayed as much more evil and deceptive as well. The women
were portrayed
as being very emotional in Don Giovanni. Donna Anna is the
most emotional
character in the opera. She is very vengeful (rightly so) when
it comes to her
father's death and very vengeful toward the murderer himself.
This
distressfulness is most evident in the scene when she gives the account
of the
night of the murder to her husband Don Ottavio. We don't see any of
the male
characters display this kind of free emotion. Donna Elvira, the
ex-fiancé, is
another one of the main female characters in the opera. She is
also a very
emotional character. When she meets Don Giovanni in the opera,
she exhibits a
great amount of sadness and despair towards her former lover.
She is also
portrayed as being very naïve when it comes to the reputation and
intentions of
Don Giovanni. She is easily deceived by Don Giovanni's
false promises and empty
flattery. Even though he had already left her once,
she is foolish enough to
believe him again. And in the end, it turns out (as
expected) that Don
Giovanni's promises and words of flattery were all
just a total sham. The
audience watches as Donna Elvira is yet again duped by
her former lover.
Zerlina's situation is very similar to that of Donna
Elvira. She is wooed by Don
Giovanni and convinced by his false promises.
She is also naïve as to his
intentions towards the opposite sex. She is
unaware that Don Giovanni has a
reputation of being deceitful, shrewd, and
very persuasive when it comes to
convincing women that he loves them.
Mozart's perspective of women is displayed
in the characters of the women in
his operas. He therefore perceives women the
way the audience would have
perceived the women in his operas. For that reason,
he perceived women as
very intelligent, wise, and emotional people. One has to
wonder just how
different Mozart's perspective of women was compared to that of
the current
time. If the two varied greatly, what kind of response did Mozart's
numerous
operas (especially the two in question: The Marriage of Figaro and
Don
Giovanni) receive from the audience? Did they appreciate the unusual
female
perspective or did they frown upon it? Did they welcome the change as
comedic or
consider it appalling because it was different?