Opera Review: Mugging on the Boardwalk

The Met takes Cosí fan tutte to Coney Island.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Motel illness: Kelli O'Hara, Christopher Maltman, Adam Plachetka, Ben Bliss, Serena Melfi and Amanda Majeski
in a frantic Act I moment from Così fan tutti. Photo by Marty Sohl © 2018 The Metropolitan Opera.

How do you solve the problem of presenting an opera that forces men and women into the stereotypes of the 18th century to a 21st century audience? If you're director Phelim McDermott, whose dazzling new Cosí fan tutte arrived at the Metropolitan Opera on Thursday night, you roll the score in glue, dip it in glitter, and hope for the best. Mr. McDermott's staging is a co-production with the English National Opera. It moves the show to Coney Island some time in the 1950s. The effect is sweet, sugary and yet strangely empty, like substituting cotton candy for your dinner after a night out on the Boardwalk.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: The Magic Flute

The birdcatcher returns to the Met to enchant the kids in Mozart's family-friendly fable.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Christopher Maltman returns to the role of Papageno in this year's revival of Mozart's The Magic Flute.
Photo by Cory Weaver © 2015 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Met offers up this year's holiday production, a shorter English-language version of Mozart's The Magic Flute. Apparently, some bloggers have jokingly dubbed this version of the opera The Magic Piccolo.  The nerve of some people...