Leeds Grand Theatre – on tour until 6th April 2024
Reviewed by Dawn Smallwood
4****
Opera North’s new Season is underway with its first performance of Cosí Fan Tutte at the Leeds Grand Theatre. Mozart’s Cosí Fan Tutte, literally known as The School for Lovers, first premiered in Austria in 1790. It is based on Lorenzo Da Ponte’s libretto and the opera buffa or comic opera explores love and relationships. Tim Albery’s Cosí Fan Tutte first premiered by Opera North in 2009 and this production is a revival.
The main characters are Ferrando (Anthony Gregory) and Guglielmo (Henry Neill), two officers, who supposedly solidify their relationship with their fiancées. Don Alfonso (Quirijn de Lang), a philosopher and the officers’ friend, decide to test them with a bet to see if their lovers, Dorabella (Heather Lowe) and Fiordiligi (Alexandra Lowe) would be loyal and faithful to them.
Alfonso involves Despina (Gillene Butterfield), the women’s servant, and bribes her to introduce the foreign suitors to both Dorabella and Fiordiligi who at the time did not realise they were disguised as their respective lovers.
The plot farcically unravels amidst betrayal, confusion, deception and speculation with Despina’s roles as a pseudo doctor and a pseudo lawyer. Ultimately with Alfonso’s philosophical statement, “They’re all the same.” and implying this to both Ferrando and Guglielmo, it ends all well which is typical of a comedy.
Set to Mozart’s ingenious music under the direction of Clemens Schuldt and overall direction by Albery, the cast put on an incredible and entertaining performance, particularly the portrayals of Alfonso by de Lang and of Despina by Butterfield. Tobias Hoheisel’s simplistic and yet highly effective staging with costumes, influenced by the Enlightenment era, with David Finn’s lighting creating the ambience and atmosphere which compliments the creativity of the production.
It is one of the longer operas, but it is important for the story to be unravelled and revealed to appreciate the farcical and comedic nature of the themes that Cosí Fan Tutte explores. The Enlightenment influenced philosophy, and this is reflected in Cosí Fan Tutte and how Mozart’s musical composition logically and reasonably tells the story and the characters’ plights whose influences differ past, present and in the future.