![Stéphane Degout as Guglielmo and Jurgita Adamonytė as Dorabella [Photo by Mike Hoban]](http://www.operatoday.com/COSI-9990_1778-DEGOUT-ASGUG.gif)
13 Sep 2010
Così fan tutte, Royal Opera House
Everyone loves Mozart. The Royal Opera House's 2010-2011 season began with Così fan tutte, and simultaneous live international broadcast.
Recently in Reviews
The Importance of Being Earnest, Covent Garden
The Importance of Being Earnest , Gerald Barry’s fifth opera, was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Barbican, and was first performed in concert, Thomas Adès conducting the London premiere.
Death in Venice by ENO
‘Beauty is the one form of spirituality that we experience through the senses.’ In Thomas Mann’s, Death in Venice, Plato’s axiom stirs the hopes of the aging, intellectually stale poet, Gustav von Aschenbach, that he may rekindle his creativity.
Adding Movie Magic to The Magic Flute
What better way for Masonic brothers, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Emmanuel Shikaneder to disseminate Masonic virtues, than through the most popular musical entertainment of their age, a happy ending folktale that features a dragon, enchanting flutes and bells, mixed-up parentage, and a beautiful young princess in distress?
Madama Butterfly, Opera Holland Park
There is a sense in which it all began in London, Puccini having been seized in 1900 with the idea of an opera on this subject after watching David Belasco’s play here.
An Evening of Zarzuela and Latin American Music at Los Angeles Opera
The tenor that the audience most wanted to hear, Plácido Domingo, opened the vocal program with “Junto al puente de la peña” (Next to the rock bridge) from La Canción del Olvido (The song of Oblivion) by José Serrano. He sounded rested and his voice soared majestically over the orchestra.
Così fan tutte in San Francisco
Tucked away somewhere in the San Francisco Opera warehouse was an old John Cox production of Così fan tutte from Monte Carlo. Well, not that old by current standards at San Francisco Opera.
Rossini Maometto Secondo Garsington Opera at Wormsley
Rossini's Maometto Secondo is a major coup for Garsington Opera at Wormsley, confirming its status as the leading specialist Rossini house in Britain. Maometto Secondo is a masterpiece, yet rarely performed because it's formidably difficult to sing. It's a saga with some of the most intense music Rossini ever wrote, expressing a drama so powerful that one can understand why early audiences needed "happy endings" to water down its impact
Peter Grimes in Concert
I suppose it was inevitable that, in this Britten Centenary year, the 66th Aldeburgh Festival would open with Peter Grimes.
Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Garsington Opera at Wormsley
Die Entführung aus dem Serail at Garsington Opera at Wormsley isn’t Mozart as you’d expect but it’s true to the spirit of Mozart who loved witty, madcap japes.
Le nozze di Figaro, Glyndebourne
What a pity! On a glorious — well, by recent English standards — summer’s day, there can be few more beautiful English countryside settings than Glyndebourne, with the added bonus, as alas much of the audience appears to understand it, of an opera house attached.
Queens, Heroines and Ladykillers
Described by one critic as “cosmically gifted”, during her tragically short career, American mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson amazed and delighted audiences with the spellbinding beauty of her singing and the astonishing honesty of her performances.
L’Incoronazione di Poppea from Virgin Classics
Since its first performance at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo during Venice’s 1643 Carnevale, Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea has been one of the most important milestones in the genesis of modern opera despite its 250 years of unmerited obscurity.
Alzira by Chelsea Opera Group
“I wrote it almost without noticing.” So Verdi declared when reminded of his eighth — and perhaps least frequently performed, opera, Alzira. One might say that, since he composed the work, no-one else has much noticed either.
Les Contes d’Hoffmann in San Francisco
Just when you thought the protagonist was Hoffmann! Who, rather what stole the show?
La Tosca in Los Angeles
When is verismo verily veristic? Or what is a virginal girl dressed in communion white doing in the two murderous acts of the Los Angeles Opera’s current production of Tosca? And why does she sing the shepherd's song?
Saverio Mercadante: I due Figaro
Though 2013 is the bicentennial of the births of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, the releases of Cecilia Bartoli’s recording of Bellini’s Norma on DECCA, a new studio recording of Donizetti’s Caterina Cornaro from Opera Rara, and this première recording of Saverio Mercadante’s forgotten I due Figaro, suggest that this is the start of a summer of bel canto.
Lohengrin, Welsh National Opera
Wagner’s Lohengrin is not an unfamiliar visitor to the UK thanks, in the main, to Elijah Moshinsky’s perennial production at Covent Garden.
Philip Glass: The Perfect American
Philip Glass's The Perfect American at the ENO in London is a visual treat, but the libretto is mind-numbingly anodyne.
Christian Thielemann’s Der Ring des Nibelungen
Recording Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen is for a record label equivalent to a climber reaching the summit of Mount Everest: it is the zenith from which a label surveys its position among its rivals and appreciates an achievement that can define its reputation for a generation.
Cecilia Bartoli as Norma
Few people who love opera in general and bel canto in particular have never heard the comment made by Lilli Lehmann, veteran of the inaugural Ring at Bayreuth in 1876, that singing all three of Wagner’s Brünnhildes—in Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung, respectively, all of which she sang to great acclaim—pales in comparison with singing the title rôle in Bellini’s Norma.
OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »
Reviews
Worldwide screenings are geared towards mass audiences, many of whom are new to opera. This production of Così fan tutte first heard in 1995 now in its seventh revival, was a safe choice.
Sir Thomas Allen’s presence guaranteed success. Like Don Alfonso, he’s a grandee, elevated above the common run. The lovers strut and fret their hour upon the stage, but Don Alfonso’s seen it all before. Allen has created Don Alfonso so many times that he has it down pat. Before the performance began, he sauntered on the Royal Opera House stage for some cheerful repartee. he’s a consummate charmer.
Thomas Allen as Don Alfonso
As Allen said, “I spend a lot of time sitting about”, since Don Alfonso’s a suave observer, who hardly needs to pulls strings to make puppets dance. The part makes no heroic vocal demands and suits Allen’s range well. He’s mellowed so well into the persona that his acting is effortless. At one point he calmly makes golf swings in the air, without a club.
Rebecca Evans as Despina made a perfect foil. She, too, has extensive experience in the role and in this production. If anything, she’s now in her prime. Wonderfully agile singing, full of verve. Her tiny frame pulsates energy. She zips about with much more vigour than her youthful mistresses. Diction and phrasing are sharp, her singing so vivid you could listen eyes closed and enjoy. When she comes in disguised in operating theatre greens, she has a mask over her face. Even before she starts to sing, her body language is so expressive it conveys personality.
Despina is a wonderful part but it isn’t the whole opera, and Evans can’t make up for the other performances which were adequate, rather than scintillating.
Maria Bengtsson and Jurgita Adamonytė resemble each other physically, and while their voices differ, neither is vocally as distinctive as might be. Adamonytė was impressive as Blanche in Prokofiev’s The Gambler at Covent Garden earlier this year, but her Dorabella, while sweetly formed, could use more individuality. Bengstsson’s Fiordiligi was more forcefully projected, dramatically sound, if lacking in nuance.
Maria Bengtsson as Fiordiligi
Neither Pavol Breslik’s Ferrando nor Stéphane Degout’s Guglielmo were specially engaging to listen to, so they were upstaged by their costumes. This is the production where the Albanians are dressed as Rockstars with bandanas and skull motif T shirts. At the premiere, this was shocking. Now it’s just corny, but in the absence of colour to listen to, it afforded some colour to look at.
Jonathan Miller’s production plays up the visual gags. Cell phones with camera applications, golf imagery, ultra-trendy costumes. This bland set looks like a caricature of “Regie” staging. It was probably more effective on film because the long flat horizontals on stage would have been foreshortened. Similarly, film would have allowed more detail than could be seen in the auditorium, enlivening the general lack of pace. Much of the action takes place off the stage. Perhaps Miller is trying to create the impression of “theatre-within-theatre” but it doesn’t work well live.
This is the sort of production gives minimalism a bad name, but unlike many where simplicity directs attention to the soul of the opera, this didn’t attempt to offer any insights. Its superficiality wouldn’t matter if the singing were uniformly impressive, but this wasn’t the case here.
From Left to Right: Maria Bengtsson as Fiordiligi, Pavol Breslik as Ferrando, Rebecca Evans as Despina, Jurgita Adamonytė as Dorabella and Stéphane Degout as Guglielmo
Yet when Miller took his bows, he was wildly applauded. Perhaps this was because there was little tension in the ensemble, and the sharper edges of Mozart’s wit were blunted But Così fan tutte without challenge undersells Mozart. This is comedy, but not shallow. Nonetheless, jokes are entertaining. Here mobile phone tunes sang the message.
The real news this evening was Thomas Hengelbrock, the conductor. He cofounded the Freiburger Barockorchester.and later the Balthasar-Neumann Ensemble and Choir. Lively period instrument ensembles prove that historically-informed practice can be vigorous and modern in spirit.They can be very adventurous, experimenting with 19th and 20th century repertoire as well as baroque.
The Royal Opera House Orchestra isn’t a period orchestra, but Hengelbrock brings the vivacity for which he is famed. It’s ideal for Così fan tutte where timing and clarity are important. Excellent balance — the harpsichord continuo specially vivid. Hengelbrock will soon be conducting Agostino Steffani’s Niobe, Regina di Tebe at the Royal Opera House.
For more information, please visit the Royal Opera House website.
Anne Ozorio