Così comes in for a bad rap sometimes. Goethe gave the libretto a blasting and Beethoven called it “immoral”. Wagner said unkind things about it too, and still today there are lingering doubts about how it compares with Mozart’s two earlier Da Ponte operas.
The truth is that, as an ensemble opera, Così fan tutte is hard to get right, primarily because so much depends on the cast being perfectly matched rather than any sticking out over the rest. This challenge extends to the pit as well: the orchestra needs to be precisely in harness with all the singers to play its crucial part.
It needs a miracle or two, but a well-executed Così fan tutte is one of the great joys in opera – and every bit the equal of Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni.
Patrick Nolan’s production for State Opera South Australia is all this.
It is inspired and deliciously put together. More than that, this might be the most wonderful thing to ever come from our local company as far as Mozart.
It comes from some well-made decisions.
Nolan transfers the story to a modern holiday resort with a good lashing of reality TV. Essentially, it has two young couples cheating on each other and suffering the humiliation at being exposed. However, instead of relying on silly disguises, tenuous make-believe, and conventions of eighteenth-century theatre, something actually close to real-life interaction takes place.
Pure acting skill makes all the difference, and this comes in abundance – every scene is finely crafted and honed. Sheer good fortune helps as well. Tenor Kyle Stegall’s shock withdrawal as Ferrando at the last minute due to personal injury was a major setback, but State Opera managed to coax another amazing Mozartean, Adrian Strooper from Cairns, into taking the part.
Sudden changes like this can threaten a whole production, especially in an opera where each character is intricately part of the whole. Yet Strooper could not have been more ideal. Having sung this same role for Komische Oper Berlin, he knows the part like the back of his hand.
Where things could have become unstuck, they fell into place like a royal flush. Indeed, so completely brilliant is this cast that one would never suspect a change had been made.
Sky Ingram, as Fiordiligi, has the truest moral instincts of the two sisters and refuses nearly all temptation to play around with other men. Her singing in ‘Come scoglio’ (Like a rock standing impervious) is drenched in internalised emotion and far above the mere coloratura showpiece this can be.
Così is funny and entertaining, but frivolity alone can wear thin if profundity is lacking – and this ingredient is hardly unexpected even in Mozart’s lighter operas. Ingram brings such intensity to her performances that, at times, it verges astonishingly close to opera seria.
The younger sister Dorabella, sung by Anna Dowsley, is more prone to riské behaviour, but not before throwing an angry rage at being double-crossed. Deeper tonally, Dowsley is incomparable in this role.
Their two boyfriends are just hilarious, and extremely fine vocally as well.
Nicholas Lester, as Guglielmo, has an resplendent bass and wears a certain dignified reserve, whereas Strooper, his mate Ferrando, continually fools around. Strooper’s contrastingly high tenor has just the right amount of brightness to cut through in duets and ensembles.
When the two of them parade around as a pair of horny studs, it gets hysterical. Exhibiting their bronzed bodies and manly moves, their look is right out of the TV show, The Hunks. Uncontrolled laughter erupts across the audience.
Completing the glorious sextet are Christopher Hillier as Don Alfonso and Jessica Dean as Despina. Hillier watches on with sadistic nonchalance while the couples’ nightmares increase. Meanwhile, Dean performs numerous vocal and acting triumphs as she navigates her in-betweener roles of maid, medico and wedding notary.
Characters are sharply etched, and no singer comes out on top – because they all do.
The musical engine-room underneath really knows what it is doing with Mozart. Dane Lam conducts the score not as a symphony with voices welded on but in the spirit in which it is conceived: as music theatre.
With the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra playing in top form, it is all air and space for the singers – and that includes Lam’s own glistening playing on harpsichord in the recitatives. There’s deepened colour, too, with woodwind solos and pairings that genuinely stand out, lovely descriptive effects in the violins (such as the sound of waves when the lads go out to sea), and never a moment at all when tempos sag or feel pushed.
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Choruses are kept simple and small in scale so as not to intrude. That’s a great touch too.
There’s just not a moment when Nolan’s production falters. Suffice to say this Così is superior in both staging and musical terms than just about any other that one cares to name. It is immensely satisfying to see it done so well.
State Opera SA’s presentation of Così fan tutte repeats on 31 August, and 5 and 7 September at Her Majesty’s Theatre. This is a review of opening night on 29 August.
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