Category: Blog

Così Fan Tutte ENO feels brilliantly contemporary for an opera that roughly translates into “all women are like that” with its sexual stereotyping and theme of infidelity.  Its success lies in its translation by Jeremy Sams of the Italian libretto into humorous, vernacular English, Tom Pye’s lavish Coney Island fairground sets and the casting of Soraya Mafi as Despina, the motel maid with the common touch.

As the strong man, oriental woman, performing dwarfs and other circus ensemble emerge from a wooden casket, we are pitched into PT Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth. The direction of this revival by Phelim McDermott is slick, well-paced and polished – everything shines from the opera performances to the comic timing, even the kick in the balls from an angry fiancée looks painful.

Two sisters are victims of a cynical wager in which a philosopher and impresario, Don Alfonso (Neal Davies) bets two lovers Guglielmo (Benson Wilson) and Ferrando (Amitai Pati) that their girlfriends won’t stay faithful to them in their absence. A plot is hatched in which the men pretend to go off to fight for their country leaving their girlfriends behind. The men reappear in disguise and successfully woo each other’s partners.

To pull off this trick, Don Alfonso ropes in a motel maid Despina, who is furtively sipping hot chocolate destined for the guests (“they get the chocolate, I get the smell”). In the best British sit com tradition, she stuffs the bribe down her bra and then moves heaven and earth to get the two sisters to break their vows. This involves Despina in adopting different guises including posing as Doctor Magnetico with his vibration machine and arranging a Las Vegas style wedding dressed as a cow girl in a Stetson. Through it all, her singing is as clear as a bell with an East End cockney twang.

The chemistry between Fiordiligi (Nardus Williams) and her sister Dorabella (Hanna Hipp) is obvious. We could be in any young girls’ bedroom. They muse about missing their men and talk of looking for someone young, handsome and rich. Their duets were both conversational and glorious.

Kerem Hasan conducts the music with perfect timing and volume to support the voices and create a seamless and sensational aural performance.

In Act Two, I noticed some interesting changes in the audience…kids in a balcony box waved at the circus performers, press hacks stopped scribbling and the surtitles were ignored as all eyes were on the stage.

Così Fan Tutte  (ENO) places the audience into a Tilt-a-Whirl, gives their cars a good spin and lurches them round bunny clubs, sugared-almond fairgrounds, retro circuses with authentically painted circus hoardings, courtesy of Joby Carter, and then abruptly plunges them into depression era movie motels before taking them up to sublime arias from hot air balloons. We are wildly spinning in countless different directions but instead of becoming green about the gills and throwing up our dinner, we don’t want to get off.

Maxine Morse  wrote this review of Così Fan Tutte as part of her opera critics training at the English National Opera. To see other reviews from her training see The Valkyrie, HMS Pinafore, The Handmaid’s Tale, Satyagraha, The Cunning Little Vixen and La Boheme.

The opening scene depicts scrounging, work shy flat sharers who are late with their rent and have no money for fuel or food. This society is clearly going to the dogs.

Variations of the La Bohème theme are on the inside pages of every popular, contemporary newspaper. Perhaps this explains the enduring appeal of this 1896 Puccini opera. It speaks to the human condition. There are no convoluted highly romanticised plots and subplots or Biblical epics with severed heads on gilded platters here.

Jonathan Miller’s production is a cross between the grey scenes of Lowry’s industrial northern poverty and Renoir’s detailed cameos of Parisienne life. Hats off to Crispin Lord, the revival director for his inclusive casting…Rodolfo (David Junghoon Kim) is a sensitive lover not a Brad Pitt lookalike, Mimi (Sinèad Campbell-Wallace) exudes seamstress-like common sense and is not the poverty-stricken waif so often depicted and Musetta is more sex bomb than harlot.

Isabella Bywater’s staging is magnificent. A gargantuan, murky edifice rotates fairground style from the freezing, spartan Crittall windowed garret to a sumptuous, joyful, bustling Christmas Eve street scene. Children chase the toy seller (Adam Sullivan) and a brass band booms. In the crowded Café Momus, amidst a confusion of toasts, camaraderie and flirtation, our impoverished bohèmians manage to palm Alcindoro (Simon Butteriss) Musetta’s elderly suitor off with their bill.

David Junghoon Kim’s vocal performance hits the highs but his lower range is sometimes drowned out by an over enthusiastic orchestra. Sinèad Campbell-Wallace singing is light, clear and crisp like the winter air. Charles Rice (Marcello), William Thomas (Colline) and Benson Wilson (Schaunard) bring some laddish musical weight to the attic scenes. Louise Alder’s performance of Musetta was fruity and rich, a joy to listen to.

Simon Butteriss who is cast as both Benoît the landlord and Alcindoro the hapless, geriatric suitor, lends a light hearted Fawlty Towers element to the production with his masterly comic timing.

The only jarring note is the dance routine in the attic in Act IV. Surely, we need a spontaneous combustion of raucous abandonment rather than a careful choreographed audience facing jig. Why else would anyone dance in their flat?

I had the pleasure of sitting behind the conductor, Ben Glassberg. He was a joy watch. He felt the music with every hand movement and was visibly transported by it and he did a masterly job in conducting for both the joys and the sadness in the plot.

The audience were visibly transported by this performance as evidenced by the rapturous final applause. We were almost tasting the wine and praying for Spring.

This year I had the pleasure of reviewing another  fine production of La Boheme at Opera Holland Park.

Maxine Morse  wrote this review of La Boheme as part of her opera critics training at the English National Opera. To see other reviews from her training see The Valkyrie, HMS Pinafore, The Handmaid’s Tale, Cosi Fan Tutte, The Cunning Little Vixen, Satyagraha and La Boheme.