Cosi fan tutte - SOH - 9.22.2009

Fresh delights in old lovers' game

Murray Black | September 22, 2009

Article from: The Australian

FOR all its comic brilliance, Mozart's Cosi fan tutte leaves a nasty aftertaste. The game Don Alfonso plays with the four lovers is amusing yet cruel. And the message that all women are fickle and inconstant is blatantly misogynistic.

But Cosi is also about the getting of wisdom. At the opera's end, Ferrando, Guglielmo, Fiordiligi and Dorabella have learned to appreciate the ambiguities and complexities of life and love.

Sung in English, this new production directed by Jim Sharman focuses on the opera's brighter, wiser side. Sharman's stated aim was to capture its glittering surface and emotional depths. By and large, he has succeeded. Much of this success is thanks to one of the strongest, freshest casts for Opera Australia in recent memory.

There was not a weak moment, frayed line or tremulous quiver within earshot. Nor did the singers' energetic performances lapse into caricature. Sexual and comic intrigue was made vivid without becoming crass.

Pure and agile across her tessitura, soprano Rachelle Durkin was genuinely moving as she grappled with Fiordiligi's emotional confusion.

Sian Pendry's richly coloured, warm-toned singing suited Dorabella's more calculating and seductive nature.

As their beaus, tenor Henry Choo (Ferrando) and baritone Shane Lowrencev (Guglielmo) made a convincing transition from boastful complacency to bitter disillusionment. Choo's secure, attractive top-register singing and Lowrencev's dark-hued, resounding timbre were impressive.

Singing with firm, unadorned clarity, Jose Carbo depicted the world-weary Don Alfonso as essentially good-natured, retaining ironic detachment without cynicism. As Despina, Tiffany Speight displayed astute tonal variety to match her winningly perky characterisation. In the pit, conductor Simon Hewett and the orchestra's fleet tempos, buoyant rhythms, sensitive phrasing and clearly defined textures generated vivacity and warmth.

Taking the opera out of its 18th-century context, Sharman and his production team have created an abstract setting that looks contemporary yet timeless.

White dominates the sets, props and lighting, and Gabriela Tylesova's colourful costumes make a bold impact.

Although the production's freshness and lightness of touch were highly appealing, not everything worked. The video projections, seemingly de rigueur these days, were irritating and the Japanese wedding set-piece didn't make sense. Sharman has said there are several ideas about it. They flew high and wide over this reviewer's head.

Cosi fan tutte - SOH - 9.17.2009

Cosi Fan Tutte

Bride dolls … Tiffany Speight (Despina) with Sian Pendry (Dorabella) and Rachelle Durkin (Fiordiligi) who embody different ideals of the desirable. (Photo: Branco Gaica)

Reviewed by Peter McCallum
September 21, 2009

Opera Australia, September 17, 2009

HAD librettist Lorenzo da Ponte written a more coherent ending, Cosi fan tutte might have become a witty satire on the double moral standards that applied to men and women, with a gender-neutral title - ''Everyone is like that'' rather than ''All women are like that''.

But as it is, it is only Despina, the pert servant given to sharp asides with a shrewd nose for hypocrisy who articulates the opinion that since men are rarely faithful, it is foolish for women to be. We are thus left with the unsatisfactory dominant message that women are temperamentally unsuited for constancy and men should get used to it. Thus, the challenge for the modern director is something like the challenge of saying something outrageous at a party and getting away with it. Jim Sharman's new production does this superbly.

Ralph Myers's set is all whites, creams and gauze as though we are watching a performance by bride and groom dolls on the contorted icing of a monstrous cake at a tourist wedding. This brings out the exuberance of Gabriela Tylesova's costumes and magnifies the effect of the colour co-ordinated confetti which the characters throw at each other symbolically.

Against this the four lovers strut and dance like mating birds. Rachelle Durkin (Fiordiligi) and Sian Pendry (Dorabella) embody different ideals of the desirable: Durkin sings with poised, well-sculpted clarity and her voice flashes with admirable precision in rapid passages. Pendry's sound is more complex with hidden colours and her approach to phrasing is rounded rather than linear. In ensembles the first impression was of mismatched voice types but the balance and discipline were sufficiently polished that it became a highly effective alliance of sounds that preserved differences.

Tiffany Speight was delightful as Despina, with a coquettishly colourful voice and a withering eyebrow. Jose Carbo brought a benign, mature vocal and stage presence to Don Alfonso.

As Guglielmo, Shane Lowrencev was particularly effective when faking it, bringing edge and vitality to persona and voice. Henry Choo (Ferrando) was responsible for the evening's most lyric moments and his ability to shape and colour slow arias so as to create a touching musical moment stood out in a production that had the pace and action of a stage play. In this respect, conductor Simon Hewett had good instinct for quick and insistent speeds. Singing the work in Jeremy Sams's deliberately klutzy English translation assisted Sharman's dramatic purpose.

Opera Australia's Mozart productions have been mixed in recent years, and this one deserves to endure.