Festival Music

Cosi fan tutte

Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Keith Bruce

Four stars

LAST weekend they were in the pit at the Festival Theatre for Bizet’s Carmen, and on Saturday the Scottish Chamber Orchestra provided the second of this Edinburgh Festival’s feast of operas with the second of their annual series of concert performances of Mozart’s master-works under the baton of Principal Conductor Maxim Emelyanychev.

With its compact cast of six, a limited role for the SCO chorus, and a tune-packed score, Cosi fan tutte is ideally suited to the approach, and the absence of an opera director over-thinking its problematic cynical attitude to romantic and sexual fidelity for the modern age is arguably a further asset.

That is not to say that the performance was not theatrical. With Emelyanychev happily cast as an extra in much of the shenanigans, and adding flourishes of his own to the fortepiano continuo that Mozart did not write down but might well have played, the principals - all singing from memory - gave us a fully-realised exploration of the work.

Costuming was, of course, limited. Tenor Josh Lovell and baritone Huw Montague Rendall donned capes to indicate their soldier’s uniform and removed their dinner-jackets and bow-ties to be “in disguise”, while Hera Hyesang Park, as Despina, had a succession of props to enable her mischief - which she enjoyed just a little too much.

From the initial entry of Christopher Maltman’s Don Alfonso the principals used the whole platform, sometimes singing from between choir and orchestra and unafraid to deliver the glorious ensembles scattered around the stage.

Maltman was in utter command at the start, and his Machiavellian master-of-ceremonies was superb throughout, with the younger men vocally and physically well-matched and full of action.

Golda Schultz and Angela Brower gave us something more nuanced, hinting at the rivalry and competitiveness of Fiordiligi and Dorabella in the opening scene and developing the most rounded characters.

Vocally, the performances were delightful from start to finish, and the solo arias were all rewarded with audience applause, which didn’t disturb the pacey story-telling too much. If the compromise of the denouement seemed to take a while to unfold, that is perhaps a flaw in the complete score we heard - but Emelyanychev is such a meticulous, attentive musician that this was a Cosi where every note counted.