‘Cosi fan tutte,” Mozart’s wickedly symmetrical sexagon with the untranslatable title — it has been known as “The School for Lovers,” “Women Are Like That,” “All for Love,” and even “As You Like It” — was presented Friday evening at the Amato Opera House with a great deal of flair. A musical delight, a crabbed puzzle, a revolutionary mix-up of the social order, it was all of these things and more.

The Amato stage is a tiny one and often the directors have to be extremely inventive to realize the logistics of the classics, but “Cosi” is rather an intimate piece, and can easily be performed on a small scale. From the moment that the two candelabra were raised to the ceiling, this miniature production worked very well.

The Amato actually has an unfair advantage over its behemoth sisters uptown. Limited in size and budget, it has little choice but to be amusing when the action demands hilarity. Thus when the two men are marching away to what the audience knows as a sham war, a tall obelisk of cardboard slides onto the stage, representing the front of a boat. Upon departure, Ferrando and Guglielmo face front but exaggeratedly step sideways and the cardboard follows them off. Old Wolfgang must have been laughing as hard as the rest of us. This is the kind of humorous device that the Metropolitan could never pull off.

Mozart’s genius is that arguably his most beautiful music ever composed immediately follows this tomfoolery. “Soave sia il vento” is so affecting that it was appropriated by Rossini for “Le Comte Ory” and by Berlioz in “Les Troyens.” At Amato, the trio of voices soared heavenward in exquisite and delicate harmony. A glorious moment indeed.

Likewise the music at this quirky house is miniaturized in a charming fashion. All that was in the pit this night were two keyboards, two woodwinds, and one brass player. With such an ebullient score, who needs strings anyway?

The sextet of singers were all talented in various ways. Mozart’s original Dorabella and Fiordiligi were sisters in real life, while the Amato pair was very different in appearance. Melissa Gerstein was a versatile Dorabella, putting her all into “Smanie implacabili,” an aria just a little too tragic for us not to hear the cackle of Mozart in the background. Ann Beirne was a sweet Fiordiligi with a pleasingly rounded voice that sometimes frayed about its edges.

Of the women, the best was the Despina of Maryann Thorne, who developed her raisonneur role intelligently and amusingly. She was always in touch with her small audience, able to wink and gesture to the crowd that could almost reach out and touch her. Her comic timing was also superb and, since the servants are confidently in charge in the Mozart-Da Ponte trilogy, it was natural for her to dominate. Disguised as a doctor carrying a giant magnet, she begins her communications in German, a parody of the “science” of mesmerism in fashion in the 1790s. Unfortunately, the remainder of the entire text was offered not in flowing Italian but rather awkward English.

The men were a step down in quality. James Wordsworth did not have the bottom range of a true Guglielmo, but did a good job of staying on pitch. Victor Ziccardi possessed just the right tenor for Ferrando but had a difficult time with many passages. There were glimpses of shining lyricism but not consistent enchantment. He was, however, a good actor and comic manipulator of his own body. Alan Gordon Smulen as Don Alfonso sang well but often forgot his lines.

At the end of the day, what made this performance so satisfying was its flavor. The house is a very informal one, where patrons come and go, singers wander about the seated customers, the stage is inviting and approachable. Before the show, patrons were taking their photographs against the backdrop of the curtain. My usher was a child of about 8 or 9 years. There is a genuine sense of fellow feeling at the Amato, a love of music and an overwhelmingly supportive environment that no opera fan can ever hope to experience uptown, no matter how much they shell out for a seat.

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What if Beethoven had died young like his contemporaries Mozart and Schubert? Would he be remembered today as anything more than a footnote? The faculty concert of the Beethoven Institute held at Mannes College of Music took a look at three of his earliest published works to help establish his place in music history.

It seems clear from the evidence presented that Beethoven would have been praised mightily for these youthful pieces even had he not gone on to immortality. The three works offered at Mannes exhibited a freshness and a boldness, a clarity and a balance hitherto unheard in Western music. The performances this evening made a further strong case for their advocacy.

The Violin Sonata No. 1 was the last of the trio of works composed but the first presented. Sylvia Rosenberg studied this piece with Adolf Busch — among many other distinctions, the grandfather of Peter Serkin — at Marlboro in the very early 1950s. The printed edition she employed contained Mr. Busch’s handwritten markings.

Ms. Rosenberg’s performance was notable for its warmth, richness of tone, and, especially, crystalline clarity. Phrasing decisions were uniformly balanced in their assertiveness and confident in their execution. Institute director Thomas Sauer accompanied at the piano.

Pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn did an excellent job in the “First” piano sonata, what we know of as the No. 1 although three others had already been composed. Mr. Solzhenitsyn is an elegant artist, establishing from the outset a noble, aristocratic tone and phrasing style that lent an air of authenticity to this rendition. Of particular note was his traversal of the Adagio, a very beautiful gem of a movement. The flavor of the old world was palpable.

What has to be the greatest Opus One in the history of music — the first three piano trios of Beethoven — was represented by the Trio in E Flat Major, Op. 1, No. 1. The three trios were performed for Prince Lichnowsky in 1795 and were heard during this period by Haydn himself, who cautioned that the third was too advanced and difficult for the household musical market.

Mr. Solzhenitsyn was joined by Soovin Kim, violin, and Michael Kannen, cello. The resulting performance was very satisfying, although there was a rather noticeable thinness of tone emanating from both stringed instruments that prevented the striving melodies of the Adagio cantabile from reaching their predestined heights. Otherwise, the reading was clean and crisp, the cello, previously treated by Haydn and Mozart as little more than a reinforcement of the pianist’s left hand, allowed to venture off on its own fruitful explorations.

The concert was enjoyable but the real work of the institute is the passing on of essential tribal knowledge of the stylistic requirements for superb Beethovenian performance. With talented faculty like these players, the students in attendance have a real opportunity to receive the passing of the torch.