Così fan tutte: Italian–English Side-by-Side Libretto With Translation

I’ve completed a substantial revision of the English translation and formatting of Mozart’s Così fan tutte, now available on LibrettoArchive.

The complete Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte has been carefully reviewed side by side with the English text, with particular attention to places where the translation had drifted from the meaning or tone of the original.

This revision goes beyond proofreading. Many passages have been corrected or refined to preserve details that had been lost in translation: changes of meaning, poetic expressions, comic turns of phrase, stage directions, and distinctions between words that may appear similar but carry quite different implications in context.

For example, il destino, anzi il dover v’invita now preserves Don Alfonso’s deliberate correction from “destiny” to “duty,” while expressions such as d’altra pasta, smanie implacabili, and un’ottava have been reconsidered in their dramatic and literary context rather than translated only at the surface level.

I also reviewed the formatting and consistency of the libretto throughout. Character names, stage directions, punctuation, repeated expressions, voice types, and typographical details have been checked across the Italian and English texts. A number of small errors and remnants of earlier transcriptions in the Italian text were corrected as well.

The goal has not been to make the English more literal at every turn, but to make it more faithful where the original wording matters while keeping it natural and readable.

The revised Italian–English libretto is available here:

https://www.librettoarchive.com/Cosi_fan_tutte_libretto_Italian_English

The revised text is available in a new second edition of the paperback, with the complete Italian and English librettos presented side by side.

PDF preview is also available.

Already Own the Previous Edition?

If you purchased the earlier edition of my Così fan tutte paperback on Amazon, I’d be happy to send you a free copy of the new second edition.

If you received this post by email, simply reply to the email and let me know that you purchased the previous edition. You can also contact me through the About section of LibrettoArchive. I’ll get in touch with you about sending your free copy of the new edition.

This revision is part of my continuing work to revisit and improve the librettos on LibrettoArchive, making the texts more reliable and useful for following the opera, studying the libretto, or simply reading Da Ponte alongside Mozart’s music.