Review: Così fan tutte"Cosi fan tutte: Mozart’s music elevates silly tale as opera series continues"Trenton Times (Anita Donovan) Mozart’s satire Cosi fan tutte, a tale of young love and jealously fueled by weird costumes and seriously bad drugs, continues as the first offering of the New Jersey Opera Theater’s Opera Fest 2006 for a final performance Saturday at McCarter Theatre’s Berlind Theatre. Two pretty sisters, Dorabella and Fiordiligi, have found their soul mates in Ferrando and Guglielmo, and the couples are engaged, to everyone’s satisfaction. However, Don Alfonso, a family friend, warns the boys not to expect complete fidelity from their girlfriends because Cosi fan tutte – all women cheat. To prove Alfonso wrong – and win a sizable wager – the young men agree to disguise themselves as foreign suitors and see if they can divert their lovers’ devotions. Thus, librettist Lorenzo da Ponte sets in motion his ridiculous plot. As soon as the young men go off to a specious battlefront, leaving the girls weeping with worry and grief, two strangers arrive in bizarre dress, vouched for by Don Alfonso as old friends from Turkey or Transylvania – or maybe it’s Albania. As soon as the strangers lay eyes on the sisters, they bow and scrape and vow eternal love. The girls are shocked and adamant in their refusal, but Don Alfonso aids in the deception and bribes the girls’ maid Despina to assist in their seduction. In a show of desperation, the strangers toss down a dose of arsenic and appear about to expire in the sisters’ parlor, when the mischievous Despina, disguised as a physician, revives them with the magnetic arts of Dr. Mesmer. After this debacle, Dorabella softens toward Guglielmo, Fiordiligi’s beau, but Fiordiligi reacts to her attraction to the disguised Ferrando as a damming flaw in her character and a stain on her honor. At the work’s Viennese debut in 1790, the premise of da Ponte’s libretto – the idea that “all women do it” – was considered distasteful and cynical. And so it still is today. If it weren’t for Mozart’s melodies and da Ponte’s comical devices, it seems to be, as one operagoer opined on exit “a male chauvinist opera.” All this, and the obvious problem of tow young ladies in love not recognizing their boyfriends in wigs and unfamiliar garb – especially their voices? – is forgotten when Steven Mosteller’s first-rate orchestra joins the opera theater’s gifted, attractive singers. The hapless lovers are tenor Fabian Robles and baritone Jason Kaminski. Princeton favorite Matthew Curran, seen here this year as [Pistola] in the opera theater’s concert version of Verdi’s only comedy [Falstaff], is the trouble-making Don Alfonso. Elisabeth Russ is Despina and Dorabella is mezzo-soprano Fenna Ograjensek. All have excellent technique and the physical alacrity for operatic comedy, but Emily Newton, with her superb voice and queenly presence, steals the show as a stirring and heartfelt Fiordiligi. McCarter’s Berlind Theatre is ideal for opera. With perfect acoustics (almost too perfect – you can hear a program fall), every note reaches the back row without the singers straining to fill the hall. It allows them to concentrate on a nuanced performance. |
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