Così fan tutte is an Italian-language opera buffa in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart first performed on January 26, 1790, at the Wiener Burgtheater in
Vienna, Austria. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte, who also wrote
Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni. Although it is commonly held that Così fan
tutte was written and composed at the suggestion of the Emperor Joseph II,
recent research does not support this idea. There is evidence that Mozart's
contemporary Antonio Salieri tried to set the libretto but left it unfinished. The
title, Così fan tutte, literally means "Thus do all [women]" and is
popularly used to mean "Women are like that".  This 1974 recording stars Montserrat Caballe
and Nicolai Gedda. Sir Colin Davis conducts.