Opera
Cosi fan tutte
Macrobert Arts Centre, Stirling
Keith Bruce
Four stars
For all Mozart’s lovely music in the much-loved late masterpiece that is Cosi fan tutte, it can seem like a parade of showpieces: solo aria, duo, trio, sextet and so on. This neat, compact piano-accompanied touring version for Scottish Opera by Lissa Lorenzo not only acknowledges that limitation but plays with it in the formal scenic design by Robbie Sinnott andthe precise blocking of the performers by the director.
A 1950s Italy setting is a fine excuse for some lovely frocks, but setting a plot that is essentially about dressing up in a dress shop also works a treat, even if a fusspot might quibble about an occasional lack of attention to detail in some of the scenic art. Echoes of more modern television renditions of the period abound, and the characters of Ferrando and Guglielmo (tenor Tristan Llyr Grifffiths and baritone Ben McAteer) are curiously reminiscent of our own Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill.
All of the cast embrace the fun of the thing with verve and style but it is Jennifer France’s mischievous Despina that has the nod-and-wink approach to the melodrama down pat. The vocal honours go to Rosalind Coad’s feisty Fiordiligi, who has a very characterful partnership with Sarah Champion’s suggestible Dorabella.
Martin Fitzpatrick’s English translation of the Da Ponte libretto is patchily rather than consistently witty, and Lorenzo deals with the unavoidable misogyny of the tale by making sure plenty of cash changes hands. The cynical cold heart of Cosi is manifest in the clear evidence that none of the six characters on stage can be identified as being either more or less mercenary than any of the others.
Touring Scotland to November 7.
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