Sunday 30 July at 6.00pm on RNZ Concert
MOZART: Così fan tutte
An opera buffa in two acts with libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte
Ferrando and Guglielmo discuss the fidelity of women with Don Alfonso. They claim that their own fiancées, Fiordiligi and Dorabella, are immune to any temptation…
Ferrando...................... Daniel Behle
Guglielmo.................... Alessio Arduini
Don Alfonso................ Johannes Martin Kränzle
Fiordiligi...................... Corinne Winters
Dorabella..................... Angela Brower
Despina........................ Sabina Puértolas
Chorus and Orchestra of Royal Opera House, Covent Garden/Semyon Bychkov (EBU)
Così fan tutte was Mozart’s third and final collaboration with the librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, following Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni. Like its predecessors, Così exemplifies the heights opera can reach when the skills of composer and librettist are perfectly matched. But Così’s reception has always been more complex than that of the other Mozart/Da Ponte operas, with the opera variously considered immoral, unfinished, cruel or simply odd since its 1790 premiere. Now finally accepted as one of Mozart’s masterpieces, it is celebrated as much for its nuanced depiction of love as for its glorious music – a near continuous roll-call of favourites, including the terzetto ‘Soave sia il vento’ and the arias ‘Come scoglio’, ‘Tradito, schernito’ and ‘È amore un ladroncello’.
Synopsis:
Ferrando loves Dorabella and Guglielmo loves Fiordiligi – but their friend Don Alfonso is sceptical. He offers the young men a bet: given the opportunity, their loves will prove unfaithful in less than a day. Confident of their girlfriends’ fidelity, Ferrando and Guglielmo accept.
The men pretend to be called away to war, only to return in disguise: each begins to woo the other’s lover. It quickly becomes clear that the feelings of all four lovers are much more complicated than any of them had thought. Don Alfonso watches on as the young men and women graduate through his school for lovers.
