Cosi

English Essay

How significant is the concept of fidelity as a link between the characters and between Nowra’s play and Mozart’s opera?

The concept of fidelity is as significant. Fidelity is a quality of a human being faithful and loyal. The characters in Cosi, Louis Nowra’s play and Mozart’s opera all have different attitude to fidelity. Mozart’s opera Cosi Fan Tutte reflects the ideas of love and fidelity that are mirrored through the characters in Nowra’s play.

A range of attitudes are presented by the various characters, Doug states “Women like to pretend they don’t play around but they’re just more secretive about it."

Whereas Cherry and Ruth offer negative views about sex, Cherry asserts that “most women fight hard to keep men out of their pants” while Ruth’s analysis is that “men like sex more than women because they don’t have to clean up the mess.”

Julie’s attitude about love is a direct opposition to Lucy’s though they have similarities as she says “Men want women to deceive them because it’ll prove their worst thoughts about women” while Lucy states “women only pretend to be true and unfaithful” because “that’s how they want us to be , eve if they’re not true and faithful themselves”.

Lewis comes to realise comparing that his life outside in the real world and the character he is playing, changed views throughout as he associates with the patients. At the beginning, he says that “love is not important nowadays” and “free love is a hard concept to define” however, as Nowra’s play progresses his views changed. When Lewis’ engagement to doing Mozart’s opera grew with the patients, his outlook on the concept altered as he states “it’s about important things – like love and fidelity.

By performing the opera, the various characters explore their views and values about fidelity and this is reflected in how Lewis changes. From doing the play, he grew and develops characteristics of human nature from believing that “love is not important...