Così Fan Tutte, an Opera of Mimetic Revelation

By Isabel Díaz-Morlán

Isabel D az-Morl n reads the characters of Cos fan tutte, an opera by Mozart and Da Ponte, through the lens of Ren Girard's theory of unconscious mimetic desire. The opera features couples who resemble those from classical literature, including Ovid's Collatinus and Lucretia, Cervantes's Anselmo and Camila, and Shakespeare's Leonatus and Imogen. The book explores the sources of the libretto, comparing them with each other and with the libretto itself to detect the themes that reveal the mechanism of mimetic desire. This offers the groundwork for the analysis of key moments of the opera, in which the combined action of words, dramatic action and, above all, music, show how Ferrando and Guglielmo as well as Fiordiligi and Dorabella fall into mimetic rivalry, an incitement to desire and hypocrisy, always within a m connaissance that prevents them from recognizing what is happening to them until the truth is finally unmasked.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1611865441
• ISBN13: 9781611865448
• Release Date: September 2025
• Publisher: Michigan State University Press
• Length: 148 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.8" x 8.9"