NZ Opera’s Così fan tutte: sparkling, sophisticated artifice

(from left) Jonathan Abernethy (Ferrando), Hanna Hipp (Dorabella), Emma Pearson (Fiordiligi) and Julien van Mellaerts (Guglielmo) pose for a happy photo.

Photo credit:  Jinki Cambronero

Mozart’s popular comic opera Così fan tutte, his third collaboration with librettist da Ponte, is like a game designed to puzzle and confuse both characters and audience. Its subtitle – The School for Lovers – might provide a clue? Ultimately, perhaps the lesson we all learn amongst all the glorious singing is not that of the title, usually translated as “All women are like that”, but a world-weary view of the frailty of love itself, taught by the cynical Don Alfonso.

In this production by New Zealand Opera, the overture is played with the curtain raised on a contemporary scene. Don Alfonso (bass Andrew Foster-Williams) strolls on, checking out the set and audience and peering suspiciously into the orchestral pit. His demeanour is that of a maître d’ and the setting is indeed a ritzy modern restaurant, complete with sparkling cocktail bar.

After he settles near the back of the stage like a spider in his web, his handsome young friends Guglielmo (baritone Julien van Mellaerts) and Ferrando (tenor Jonathan Abernethy) arrive, followed closely by their girlfriends in glittering cocktail garb, sisters Fiordiligi (soprano Emma Pearson) and Dorabella (mezzo Hanna Hipp). The happy young couples, now betrothed, pose as Don Alfonso takes a cellphone photo provocative enough for Instagram.

This shot captures the high point of two relationships about to slide down a slippery slope of deception and betrayal, as the young men reluctantly accept Don Alfonso’s challenge to test the fidelity of their lovers. The plot, worthy of a Netflix romcom, unfolds through flimsy deceptions and disguises, emotional farewells and passionate wooing, all facilitated before us by a cleverly revolving set and imaginative fast-changing lighting design.

Mozart’s opera is a marvellous artifice, as skilfully contrived as da Ponte’s plot. Six characters in three pairings – the sixth is the girls’ maid Despina (soprano Georgia Jamieson Emms), who joins Don Alfonso’s manoeuvres - sing a symmetrically distributed succession of beautiful arias, duets, trios and sextets.

The cast for this production is superb, six great singers and actors in a splendidly balanced ensemble. Of course, the plot is not believable, but the singing is genuinely expressive of deep emotions, and we are moved by the distress of the lovers even when their anger or sadness seems foolishly extravagant. Jamieson Emms provides a comic foil while wielding the cocktail shaker, but her Despina is also a splendidly-realised character, played with depth and great singing. Foster-Williams is also both a fine singer and a believably misanthropic puppeteer, manipulating and despising the gullible lovers.

Don Alfonso (Andrew Foster-Williams) and Despina (Georgia Jamieson Emms) mix up the cocktails while Dorabella (Hanna Hipp) is increasingly upset.

Photo credit:  Jinki Cambronero

There are many outstanding vocal highlights. Pearson’s Act 1 aria Come scoglio immoto resta as Fiordiligi asserts her fidelity is one, and later in Act 2 she sings passionately of her guilt in Per pietà,ben mio, perdona. Van Mellaerts in Donne mie la fate a tante, an aria redolent of the opera’s apparent misogyny, uses all the colours of his fine baritone to boldly explain women’s infidelity to the audience. Hipp, her lovely mezzo impressive throughout, sang the beautiful aria È amore un ladroncello, Un serpentello è amor ("Love’s a serpent, a thief") with wonderful character. When Ferrando learns from a rather smug Guglielmo of his lover’s infidelity, Abernethy’s aria Tradito, schernito (“Betrayed and scorned”) reveals both his character’s sincere humiliation and grief and the beauty of his tenor voice.  

Soprano Emma Pearson as Fiordiligi

…her aria Per pietà,ben mio, perdona was a vocal highlight.

Photo credit:  Jinki Cambronero

A comedic highlight comes near the end of the first of the two Acts. The young men, disguised as Albanians in ridiculous long wigs, attempt to seduce the sisters. Rejected, they pretend to drink poison. Ministered to by Despina, disguised as a doctor, they roll in agony on the sisters’ pink yoga mats. The lighting become psychedelic, and in a hilarious choreography the four end up singing while holding hands cross-legged on the mats, evoking a modern-day Woodstock.  

Mozart’s compositional genius is on riotous display in Dammi un bacio, o mio Tesoro (“Give me a kiss, my treasure”), the big vocal sextet that ends the Act. As the chaos deepens, all six singing different words, the set revolves incessantly and the four young people chase each other in farcical pursuit. And yet, somehow, within the exaggerated humour, the music ensures we are touched by the distress and bewilderment of the lovers.

The set of Così fan tutte

…underlining the themes of transformation and fantasy.

Photo credit:  Jinki Cambronero

Conductor Natalie Murray Beale and Orchestra Wellington provide great, sensitive and well-paced accompaniment to the fast-moving action. The NZ Opera Chorus sings with bright and brilliant tone and their appearance with animal heads in Act 2 transforms the setting into a Rousseau-like exotic garden. The wonderland design and lighting in this act, including gorgeous period costumes for the women, increasingly underline themes of fantasy, transformation and disorder. Just what was added to those cocktails?  

Designer Tracy Grant Lord (left) and Director Lindy Hume

…a sophisticated interpretation of Così fan tutte

Photo credit:  Jinki Cambronero

During the illusions of the final Act, director Lindy Hume does not attempt to unravel the plot complexities for a happy ending. Her interpretation of the opera is as sophisticated as the stylish work itself. We are amused and outraged while simultaneously moved by the real emotions expressed. We long fruitlessly, like the characters, for a tidy romantic resolution with everyone happily reunited with the right person.

Perhaps Mozart and da Ponte were schooling us that life is not like that. The young sisters are naïve and foolish, but their lovers are also duped by Alfonso, assisted by the worldly-wise Despina.  In the end, the least likeable character has proven his point and pocketed money from his wager. We, like the other characters, are left angry and disappointed, but perhaps we must acknowledge that youth is foolish, and the older characters know the score.  

Sisters Fiordiligi (Emma Pearson) and Dorabella (Hanna Hipp)

…the most thoroughly deceived.

Photo credit:  Jinki Cambronero

The two sisters, ultimately, are the ones with least agency, the most thoroughly deceived. And yet they blame themselves most for their weakness. Is this also something “all women do”? “With fidelity and with love, I will make good what I have done,” they sing humbly in apology to their lovers at the end.

Is Così fan tutte misogynist? Well, treat yourself to a sparkling and entertaining night at the opera and make up your own mind.

New Zealand Opera Così fan tutte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte Lindy Hume (Director) Natalie Murray Beale (Conductor) Tracy Grant Lord (Designer) Matthew Marshall (Lighting) with Orchestra Wellington and the New Zealand Opera Chorus (Michael Vinten, Director) Wellington June 14-18, Christchurch 28 June – 2 July

More information and tickets here