Così Fan Tutte ENO – REVIEW by Maxine Morse, 10 March 22

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.

Blog • See