The more than 200-year-old meltingly musical beauty and comical yet thought-provoking nature of Mozart’s 1789 opera buffa, Così fan tutte, unpacks a great deal across its two acts and 24-hour timeframe.
In a new production directed by Polly Graham for Irish National Opera and currently playing at Dublin’s charming Gaiety Theatre, The School for Lovers — as it is otherwise known — is treated to a clever early 20th century Irish contextualised concept in which WWI is underway and women are on the verge of winning the right to vote.
As the story goes, two privileged sisters, Dorabella and Fiordiligi, are duped after a bet is wagered between their adoring fiancés Ferrando and Guglielmo, along with their philosophising friend Don Alfonso who insists a woman’s fidelity is like the Arabian phoenix; everyone swears it exists but no one knows where. Under the pretence of being called away on battle duty, the men return as disguised, moustached Albanians, seduce the other’s partner and, to their shock, win their hearts – clearly not a victory they had hoped for.
As a visitor to Ireland, and no doubt to locals, Graham’s concept begins with great appeal with local history adding fine-fitting impact to the drama at hand.
On Dublin’s opening night, the musical quality soared with each of the principals having both their time to impress as well as blending gorgeously as an ensemble. They were aided by the energetic contingent of fine young singers of the INO Chorus together with conductor Peter Whelan’s captivating and dynamically driven realisation of Mozart’s unceasingly affecting score.
The two sisters’ are uniquely characterised by Sharon Carty’s dynamically charged vocal expressivity as Dorabella — pity the servant who gets thrown across the stage in her fit of anger— and Anna Devin’s more pure vocal elegance as Fiordiligi.
Convincingly portraying both the lovers and their disguised exotic characters from start to finish, Benjamin Russell and Dean Power are a winning comical duo and handsomely voiced as Guglielmo and Ferrando respectively. John Molloy breezes about with a distinguished air and in characterful voice as Don Alfonso and Majella Cullagh is a hoot as the sisters’ influential housemaid Despina and her disguises as a quack and notary.
Witty and insightful as Lorenzo da Ponte’s Italian libretto is, today’s standards expose the work’s glaring sexism and discrimination but Graham goes far in facing them head-on, in a way one could say, that avoids the fate of it succumbing to cancel culture.
Rather than presenting the two sisters as shallow and unworldly, Graham sets them on a trajectory of positive change, from a life of privileged idleness to strong individuals actively joining the time’s social changes free from the domination of men.
Don Alfonso turns out to be an early silent filmmaker. He’s making a silent movie about an ancient Irish legend set at the Hill of Tara the locals will have a far deeper awareness of than me and the two Albanians are his stars.
But Graham’s concept doesn’t come without a few small issues in its execution. The embedded filmmaking story that comes in Act 2, interesting as it is, not only crowds and overwhelms proceedings to the extent it was taken — the chorus have an unusually frequent presence as servants, film extras and demonstrators — but seems to compromise the already inventive adaptation Graham presents. It makes you wonder what purpose the filmmaking serves.
The feature of Jamie Vartan’s set design, creating both an indoor-outdoor sense of space by its tall cubic walled enclosure, is a lumpy green mound spreading across the middle of the stage. And of course, it alludes to the Hill of Tara. Much of the action is performed over it but the sometimes noticeable attention to footwork has the affect of breaking the visual flow. Costumes, also by Vartan, are loosely evocative of the era and Sinéad McKenna’s lighting design adds focus where needed.
Quibbles aside, Irish National Opera’s culturally contextualised Così fan tutte is a thoroughly entertaining experience that will guarantee a buzz and gush of discussion post-performance. Having the fortune of being in Dublin at the right time for a dose of opera-made-relevant, ‘the luck of the Irish' might just be following me on my trip around the Emerald Isle.
Così fan tutte
Irish National Opera
Gaiety Theatre, Dublin
Until 27th May 2023
Leisureland, Galway (concert performance)
29th May 2023
Cork Opera House
31st May and 2nd June 2023
Productiona Photo: Ruth Medjber
