I have always liked some operas by Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart, but for some reason ”Così fan tutte” has never been one of my
favourites. It has been well over ten years since I last saw it , but when the
Finnish National Opera now brought back an old production of it with a new,
rather nice Finnish group of soloists, I thought that I should go and check, if
my opinion has changed since the last viewing.
“Così fan tutte’s” story is super stuffy. Ferrando and
Guglielmo are dating Dorabella and Fiordiligi and believe that the ladies would
always be faithful to them. Their pal - Don Alfonso - , however, believes that all
women are frivolous by nature and the ladies would without doubt cheat on them
when given a chance. So, the men pretend to go to war, but return in disguise
and the women fall for the men of each other. Then the men pretend to return
from war, find out about the “deception” of the women and nobly forgive them. I
still wasn’t keen on the story and the maid of the women – Despina – keeps on
being the wittiest of the whole bunch in her charming cynicism.
For ”Così fan tutte” this direction (Guy Joosten) was ok:
set design (Johannes Leiacker) and costume design (Karen Seydtle) were
suitable.
Nowadays in the Finnish National Opera you only see all
Finnish groups of soloist in old productions like this Così, but these soloists
were of good class. The suspicious men (Jussi Myllys as Ferrando and Waltteri Torikka as Guglielmo) were quite nice
caricatures. Marjukka Tepponen sang very well the top demanding intervals extending
for nearly two octaves of Fioridiligi. Enjoyable to listen! And of course, I enjoyed Erika Back’s Dorabella. Her
voice is really beautiful. Suvi Väyrynen also did a great performance as
Despina.
Despite the group of nice soloists I have to say, that I
am still no great fan of this opera. It won’t be difficult to skip seeing it
for another several years.
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