In a letter written to his wife toward the end of his life, Mozart (who would have celebrated his 256th birthday last week) writes:
“Get your dear and lovely nest ready and most prettily, for my little fellow indeed deserves it. He has behaved very well and desires only to possess your beautiful […]. Picture to yourself the little rogue who, even as I write, creeps up onto the table and looks up at me questioningly. On guard, I give him a smart slap…but the rascal only burns yet more and can hardly be controlled.”
As Robert W. Guttman notes in his Mozart: A Cultural Biography, this letter hints at the phallic glory and references in Così fan tutte. will be a highlight of Christopher Alden’s staging of the work for New York City Opera this March.
