Welsh National Opera: Cosi fan tutte - Birmingham Hippodrome

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Fri 10 May 2024

Mozart’s Così fan tutte has had a chequered history and in many ways feels outdated in our current worldview. Its title translates as ‘all women are like that’ and in the opera the misogynistic character of Don Alfonso sets out to prove the statement - by encouraging two young men to disguise themselves as strangers and attempt to seduce their lovers.

Don Alfonso is so convinced that all women are untrustworthy that he puts his money where his mouth is and bets Guglielmo and Ferrando their women will fall. And in true comic opera tradition, all kinds of craziness ensues.



This new Welsh National Opera production goes in heavy on the humour and less on the morality and, in doing so, gives us a show which allows us to put our genuine beliefs that maybe all women aren’t ‘like that’ to one side and simply enjoy the fun as the guys set out to deceive.

There is an argument that Mozart’s story is more about Don Alfonso teaching the lovers that all people are fallible and romance unreliable and the production focuses on this element. Taking the opera’s sub-title The School for Lovers as inspiration, the show, directed by Max Hoehn and designed by Jemima Robinson, sets the story in a classroom.

All the action takes place against one backdrop with a series of large drawings of both male and female reproductive organs being moved around as a reminder that the story is really about sex. Also decorating the schoolroom are drawings of Adam, Eve and the Snake - reminiscent of temptation and again of how women are to blame for everything!

The schoolroom setting emphasizes the immaturity of the couples who believe the romanticized ideal of true love and fidelity. As they run around the classroom in their school uniforms professing how their love will last forever, we are only too aware of how their delusions are about to be blown sky high.



Sophie Bevan’s Fiordiligi is the most complex of the characters and we see that so human indecision as she swears to stay true to her lover but admits she is also forcefully attracted to the new man on the scene. We feel huge sympathy for her as she battles between loyalty and desire.

Kayleigh Decker’s Dorabella is much more light-hearted. Charmed by the attention of the stranger, she decides life is too short to hang around waiting for a guy who has supposedly disappeared off to war. What if he never comes back, she asks, handing her heart over to the interloper.

The two boys, sung by James Atkinson and Egor Zhuravskii play the roles. Initially, they are the lovestruck boyfriends, convinced of the faithfulness of the girls and then, as the hippy-clad deceivers, they take to the comic parts with gusto.

It is when we come to the adults in the show that the production feels a little awkward, if not decidedly unpleasant. Stephen Wells’ Don Alfonso is almost a diabolical character as he leads the boys astray, encouraging them to tempt their girlfriends solely to prove to them that all women are fickle. As their schoolteacher this feels like a particularly cynical if not downright sordid lesson.

So too Rebecca Evans’ Despina is hugely funny as the school dinner lady cum cleaner but when she urges the girls to drop their boyfriends for the new guys, there is an unsavoury note to someone so much older trying to tempt them to cheat.

Perhaps the production feels most unwieldy with the WNO chorus who, as fellow students, are romping around the stage in their shorts and knee-high socks, playing games and generally being an unruly mob of teenagers. While their singing is strong, some do appear a bit awkward in the roles.

Mozart’s music is, of course, marvellous and the WNO Orchestra, under the baton of Tomáš Hanus plays even his most intricate of melodies with apparent ease, reminding us of just why the composer was such a genius.

In the end, it is all ridiculous but such is the point of comic opera. If you start pulling at the strings of the story, the whole piece becomes unwoven so the trick is to go with it, laugh at the jokes and enjoy the fun.

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