Just back from a whirlwind tour of prestigious productions
in European opera houses, a slight apprehension that a college presentation
of one of the most familiar operas in the canon might be anticlimactic
proved unfounded. Cosi always engages emotions, especially when
things start to fall apart in the second act. Clive Timms elicited creditable
orchestral playing (far more assured than recently in Rossini)
and kept things moving forward without over-pressing the singers.
Lindy Hume's staging (designer Nicky Shaw, lighting
David Holmes) enhances the dramatic coherence and psychological depth
of this complex work. It all takes place in a restaurant with its bar
and garden and, though often very funny, did not descend into a boisterous
romp, but allowed the disturbing undercurrents to weave their way through
the whole production. The restaurant staff provided the chorus and the
ensemble team-work was worthy of Glyndebourne.
Guildhall fields a double cast; we saw Joao Fernandez
(a properly sceptical Don Alfonso) plotting with Despina (Alish Tynan),
the manageress of the restaurant where he was a regular diner. Her assumptions
of the roles of doctor, with an updated treatment, and later as a lawyer
who actually sang the marriage ceremony instead of just wheezing through
it asthmatically, were very convincing. So were the disguises and assumed
body language of Adrian Dwyer & Rasmus Tofte-Hansen as prospective
lovers on the side, and they both sang persuasively too. Claire Platt
& Helen Withers were well matched as a very different pair of girls,
vocally and physically, making it appropriate that they chose the 'others'
for their fling. Both were impressive in their major arias, and indeed
all the protagonists presented themselves as well trained singers, ready
for professional careers, and must be congratulated for their clear
enunciation of Jeremy Sams' pithy translation. The immediacy of being
able to follow every twist of the plot more than compensated for the
loss of the more mellifluous original Italian.
The total destruction of ideals implied in Cosi
was evaded, creating a 'feel good' factor for the audience, the
final ambiguities and dilemmas given clear signposts to differing possible
resolutions, instead of sinking into a morass of hopeless despondency
as in the Opera Factory production set on a beach, or the uncomfortable
Jurgen Flimm/Oliver Widmer/ Bartoli production in Zurich
, staged in a lecture room and conducted with fierce single-mindedness
by Harnoncourt. This can be recommended on DVD (Arthaus
100 112). No, there is no reason ever to tire of Cosi
fan tutte!
Peter Grahame Woolf
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