Mozart and Movement
ELIZABETH ALLEN
A highlight of the Battle Festival was Barefoot Opera’s performance of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte, and it proved particularly well-suited to the distinctive Barefoot style. That style involves an emphasis on movement, and the energy and extravagance of the production, its fun and farce, were highly appropriate to the crazy devices of the story line.
In Cosi there is a potential for emphasis on darkness and pain, but here the comedy was always to the fore: it played effectively in the over-acted despair of the sisters (Katerina Oikonomou as Fordiligi and Ilona Nastase as Dorabella) at the departure of their lovers (Isaac Conibear as Gugliemo and Beartsz Thiede as Ferrando) and the lack of acrimony in the final reconciliations.
This production introduced a new complication. Here Don Alonso (Joel Robson) was not an ageing cynic determined to prove to young men that their trusted beloveds can easily be corrupted into infidelity because “all women are like that.” Instead he was a scientist setting up an experiment to prove this hypothesis. This seemed an unnecessary addition, and the Don’s putting on and discarding his white coat in the opening scene was rather confusing.
Other production choices, such as the emphasis on changes of clothing – for the sisters as well as the disguised lovers and Despina (Zara Donaldson) – lent a strong visual correlation to the themes of shifting identities. A lively addition was the integration of always excellent keyboard player Lesley Anne Sammons into the plot – and a big shout out for those gold boots, Lesley Anne.
There has been much critical discussion of the way in which in this opera Mozart’s music runs against Da Ponte’s libretto, Da Ponte being a cynic who supports Don Alsonso’s belief that all women are thus, while Mozart provides, conversely, particularly radiant music for deception and betrayal. Unlike Figaro and Don Giovanni, it is not the grand arias for which one remembers Cosi. The majority favourite is the tender ensemble of the sisters and Don Alonso, May the Wind be Gentle. The emphasis on ensemble pieces suited the always firm and clear singing of all the young cast.
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