A Singer’s Guide to ‘Cosi fan Tutte’
There will be a semi-staged performance of Mozart’s opera, Cosí fan Tutte, as part of the Edinburgh International Festival in the Usher Hall on Saturday 10th August, and so I thought I would have a look at this much loved, but enigmatic masterpiece, as a sort of preview. Before I start, I would like to say that this looks, on the musical side, one of the best concerts in the Festival, with a fabulous cast, and I really recommend that you grab a ticket!
The opera was performed for the first time on 26th January 1790 at the Burgtheater in Vienna, and subsequently a few times later that year. The libretto was by Lorenzo da Ponte, a charismatic Italian who had somehow found his way to the Austrian court, and who had supplied Mozart with libretti for Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni. Although not overtly offensive to the Austrian court (far less dangerous politically than Figaro!), the opera was seen in Victorian times as racy, immodest and rather vulgar, and was rarely performed. It came back into circulation in the second part of the 20th century, and became popular, since most of the music is fabulous, but in recent years has become more difficult to stage, due to its deeply offensive premise that all women are the same – fickle and stupid!
This is one of those few operas which do not have a title in English which is easily recognised. ‘La Bohème’, meaning the Bohemian Lifestyle as lived in 19th century Paris, is never translated, and similarly, we know Verdi’s ‘La Traviata’ only by its Italian title and not as ‘The Fallen Woman’, the direct translation. Many other operas are known by the names of the protagonists in the title, like ‘Otello’, or ‘Tristan und Isolde’, but I can’t think of another with an Italian title that 98% of the audience can’t translate. The title, ‘Cosí fan Tutte’ stems from a phrase in the libretto, sung by the three men, meaning ‘All women do this’, and there’s no getting away from the fact that it is grossly misogynist. The fact that the men themselves are just as fickle and flaky as the women doesn’t seem to have occurred to them!
However, there’s no use just moaning about its out of date morality. Let’s look at the music, and here we are on firmer ground. Cosí is the third of the great trio of Italian operas written by Mozart and Da Ponte between 1786 and 1790, which represent perhaps the high point of classical perfection. I have been lucky enough to sing in all three operas over my career, in a variety of locations, notably Aix-en-Provence and La Monnaie in Brussels for Figaro, Dublin and ENO for Giovanni and, exotically, Bermuda for Cosí, as well as Sadler’s Wells in London. My favourite remains Figaro, but some of the music in Cosí is truly sublime – the trio of Sop, Mezzo and Bass, ‘Soave sia il vento’ transports one to the heavens, and the tenor aria for Ferrando, ‘Un Aura Amorosa,’ is glorious in the right hands.
We are in for a treat at the Usher Hall on Saturday 10th August, when my former colleague, Josh Lovell, will sing Ferrando. I first met the young Canadian in Victoria BC in 2013, when I was singing the title role in Verdi’s ‘Falstaff’ with Pacific Opera Victoria. He was still at music college, but was cast as Bardolfo, Falstaff’s grubby henchman, a substantial role made to sound risibly easy by Josh. Soon he was winning competitions and working in Europe, and in 2021 he won the hugely prestigious International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition in Vienna and has been all over the world since then. He has sung regularly at the Wiener Staatsoper and is coming to Edinburgh direct from the Salzburg Festival.
He is joined in Cosí by the fine young British baritone, Huw Montague Rendall, who is similarly making a big splash in the singing world, with a debut recording, ‘Contemplation’, coming out just after the Edinburgh Festival. I sang with both of Huw’s parents in my career. David Rendall was the Duke in Jonathan Miller’s famous staging of Verdi’s Rigoletto with ENO at the London Coliseum and Diana Montague was Marcellina to my Bartolo in Christof Loy’s brilliant ‘Figaro’ at the Monnaie. Huw himself has appeared at most of the major European opera houses in such roles as Papageno, Guglielmo and Pelléas, and is one of the most exciting talents on the operatic scene. Truth be told, Guglielmo is not a role where the baritone gets much chance to shine vocally, but it’s great fun and I reckon Huw and Josh are going to be great together.
The role I sang, that of the cynic, Don Alfonso, will be sung by the fine baritone, Christopher Maltman, and I am sure he will sing it well. It’s funny that in the early days, I enjoyed singing Don Alfonso, but as time passed and my career went on, I found him more and more unbearable, until towards the end of my career, I told my agent I wasn’t interested in singing the role. He is a thoroughly unpleasant man, breaking young people’s hearts for the sake of a bet or a bit of fun. Even the sublime trio with Fiordiligi and Dorabella sees him lying and feigning sadness for effect. I know I am an actor and have played all sorts of despicable creatures, but somehow Alfonso’s cynicism gets to me. Don’t let me put you off, but I really can’t be bothered with this so called humorous character. The fact that his machinations are shared with the ladies’ maid, Despina, is no help, and shows her in a pretty poor light. It’s all a bit of fun, I hear you say; lighten up, man!
Despina will be sung by Hera Hyesang Park, Fiordiligi by Golda Schultz and Dorabella by Angela Brower. I don’t know any of these singers, but their CVs are excellent. Ms Park is a South Korean soprano, now living in New York, who is making a big name for herself and is a Deutsche Grammophon artist, having just released her second solo album. I recorded many times for DG, but never got to make a solo album with them!
Angela Brower is an American mezzo from Arizona who excels in trouser roles like Cherubino and Octavian. In 2009, she obtained the Munich Festival Prize for her portrayal of Dorabella at the Bavarian State Opera, which augers well for us on the 10th of August.
Golda Schultz is a South African soprano, who has also sung frequently at the Staatsoper in Munich, so probably knows Ms Brower well. The story goes that Mozart heartily disliked the soprano for whom he created the role of Fiordiligi, Adriana Ferrarese del Bene, who was Da Ponte’s mistress at the time. She had annoying habits of dropping her chin on low notes and throwing back her head on high notes. The story goes that Mozart deliberately wrote huge leaps in Fiordiligi’s part that meant that she ended up with her head bobbing up and down like a chicken on stage. Whether this is true or not, the role is indeed enormously demanding, but I am sure Ms Schultz will rise to the occasion.
Dorabella and Fiordiligi are sisters, living in some luxury in Naples, besotted with their lovers, the soldiers, Guglielmo and Ferrando. The plot revolves around a wager that the two soldiers make with their friend, Don Alfonso, described as an old philosopher and bachelor, that their faithful lovers can be proved disloyal and fickle within a day. To this end, the soldiers pretend to leave for a campaign, but return almost immediately disguised as Albanians, who are desperate to woo the sisters, but not the ones they are affianced to.
The plot is ridiculous, the scenes are ridiculous, but no one really cares. It’s all a jolly romp. Alfonso ropes Despina into the story and she appears disguised as a doctor and a notary at various points. As a doctor, she is supposed to ‘cure’ the Albanians, who have taken ‘poison’, since their advances have been met with disdain. She uses the new fad for magnetic treatment made popular by Franz Mesmer in the late 1700s, whose use of magnets to cure illnesses developed into a sort of hypnotism, called Mesmerism. Thus Da Ponte and Mozart were tapping into a very contemporary trend, albeit tongue in cheek.
The trouble arises in the second act when the girls become actually infatuated by the ‘wrong’ men, and so, at the end, when all is revealed as a hoax and everyone is happy and delighted at the outcome, with the winning of the bet, and a trio of men singing ‘Cosí fan Tutte’, we see that the sisters are left utterly defeated, confused and in despair. The music is happy and festive, but the women are flattened and deflated.
Since the plot is so silly, with pretend Albanians and doctors, we are supposed to accept that the denouement is all part of the fun, and that would be the case except for one thing. Mozart’s music is not whimsical, not at all, and the raging fires of love and betrayal, so brilliantly exposed in the music, leave all the protagonists utterly spent, except for Alfonso and his sidekick, Despina.
Maxim Emelyanychev, the principal conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, who are playing in this performance, has the difficult task of holding things together, and from what I have seen of this dynamic young musician, he will be well up to the task.
There are still tickets available for this performance, and whatever you make of the plot and the morality thereof, it looks to me to be potentially the best concert in the Festival, with an absolutely phenomenal cast, so I would encourage you to go along.
As an appetiser, go first to the New Town Church at 2.30pm on the 10th August, for an absolutely fantastic concert of operatic treats (including a duet from Cosí), featuring myself and a gorgeous team of fabulous young singers. It will finish by 4.30, allowing plenty of time to get to the Usher Hall for 6pm for Cosí. Don’t miss either!
