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: Così fan tutte

The Met opens the Coney Island Boardwalk a week early.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

"Gee. No beer, no opera dogs..." --H. Simpson

"Wann fährt der nächste Schwan?": A scene from Così fan tutti with 
Adam  Plachetka and Serena Melfi, pushed by strongman Titano Oddfellow.
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2018 The Metropolitan Opera. 

The Met tries its hand at Brooklyn gentrification with a new production of Così fan tutte set on the Coney Island Boardwalk. (If the reviews are negative, the next one will be staged in lower Manhattan, presumably on Park Place.)

The Mozart Project: Così fan tutte

"Boys versus girls in the World Series of love."
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Continuing our proud tradition of graphics that have little to do with Mozart,
here's Tom Hanks and Geena Davis in A League of Their Own.
Image © 1992 Touchstone Pictures/The Walt Disney Company.

Cosí fan tutte  is the last of the three operas Mozart wrote in close collaboration with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte. But unlike their preceding collaborations, this opera is an original story by da Ponte, its impetus coming from a phrase in their earlier Le Nozze di Figaro. The title translates loosely as "Women are like that." It comes from the longer phrase "Così fan tutte la belle", uttered by the sarcastic Don Basilio in that earlier opera. Unfortunatly for Mozart and Da Ponte, the death of Emperor Joseph II squashed enthusiasm for their new opera in Vienna, and it closed after only five performances.

Opera Review: Mozart Before the Wrecking Ball

LoftOpera tackles Cosí fan tutte.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Sisters are doin' it for themselves: Dorabella (Sarah Nelson Craft) and Fiordiligi (Megan Pachecano)
in a scene fron LoftOpera's Cosí fan tutte. Photo by Robert Altman © 2016 LoftOpera

The dark, shadowy streets where Williamsburg abets Bushwick are deserted at night. That is, unless you count the musicians, patrons and Mozarteans who flocked to last night's opening of LoftOpera's latest production. This new staging of Mozart's Cosí fan tutte occupied one quarter of an enormous old warehouse at 101 Varick Avenue, a desolate property that is scheduled for sale, demolition and redevelopment in the near future.

The Mozart Project

Seven great works from the genius who changed the world.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Somewhere around three-quarters of the way through the ten articles lay month chronicling the life and major stage works of Richard Wagner I started thinking about who I was going to write about next, I thought for maybe ten seconds and decided that the next composer in our spotlight will be Mozart.

Opera Preview: A French Double Bill of Distinction

Opera Lafayette returns to Lincoln Center.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

A scene from the Fall 2013 performance of Les Femmes Vengées.
Photo by Louis Forget © 2013 Opera Lafayette.

This week marks the return of Opera Lafayette to New York. This bold and justly celebrated Washington DC-based ensemble offers intimate operatic performances of excellent quality at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater, the venue that is normally home to Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Così fan tutte

James Levine returns to conducting opera with Mozart's comedy.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Three Sopranos: Isabel Leonard (left) Danielle De Niese (center) and Susanna Philips
in a scene from the Metropolitan Opera's revival of Così fan tutte. 
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera.

Are women really "like that?"(Maybe.)

Are men really pigs? (Probably.)

Is James Levine really back? (Definitely!)

Opera Review: A Snake in the (fake) Grass

Juilliard and the Met collaborate on Cosí fan tutte.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Fiordiligi (Emalie Savoy) attempts to elude Ferrando (Matthew Lewis) in Juilliard's Così fan tutte.
Photo by Nan Melville © 2012 The Juilliard School/The Metropolitan Opera.

Stephen Wadsworth's handsome new production of Così fan tutte, the latest collaboration between Juilliard and the Metropolitan Opera is set in a claustrophobic garden. Looming, convent-like walls trap the participants in Mozart's "school for lovers." Significantly, the doors are locked. Occasionally, Don Alfonso (Evan Hughes) the perpetrator of this experiment in spit and partner swapping peers over the walls, to check how his subjects are getting along.

This production (seen at the Nov. 17 matinee at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater) is a sequel (of sorts) to Mr. Wadsworth's Juilliard Don Giovanni, seen at the conservatory last Sprig. Charlie Corcoran has again mounted the comic action in a series of handsome, receding picture frames that provide entrances and exits. Nature-images abound, from the (working) water pump, the grassy (AstroTurf) carpet, and the large orange tree that dominates the scene.

Given the plot of Così, the last collaboration between Mozart and his librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, one expects a serpent to slither out and bite the dunder-headed protagonists, two young soldiers who swap their partners, (a pair of sisters) to prove their fidelity and win a bar bet. The cynicism of the libretto and question-mark ending can sometimes leave an audience feeling downright queasy, despite the glittering music.

Opera Review: Mozart, Occupied

New York Opera Exchange opens a Così on Wall St.
by Paul Pelkonen

Mozart: 18th century anarchist.
Photoshopped by the author.

The New York Opera Exchange is the latest example of a recent surge of small community opera companies that provide a venue for young conservatory singers on the way up. On Sunday evening at the Church of the Covenant, the NYOX offered the fourth and final performance of its first full opera production: Mozart's Così fan tutte.

Director Cameron Marcotte presented a reworked and updated version of this comedy, moving the action to Wall Street, specifically in the year 2011 as the canyons of lower Manhattan echoed with the clatter of percussion and the crunch of police batons. Here, the whole cast become employees of Don Alfonso, whose cynical nature fits his new role as a Wall Street CEO.

In Mr. Marcotte's update. Ferrando (Jeffery Taveras) and Gugliemo (Joseph Beckwith) are would-be masters of the universe, junior analysts at Don Alfonso's corporation. The Don (Jason Cox) sexually harasses Despina and thinks that all of his employees are idiots.

He might be right.

Opera Review: Goodbye to Romance

New York City Opera mounts Così fan tutte.

by Paul Pelkonen

A row to nowhere: the cast of the City Opera's Così fan tutte.
L.-R.: Jennifer Holloway, Philip Cutlip, Sara Jakubiak, Allan Clayton.
Photo by Carol Rosegg © 2012 New York City Opera.

When George Steel assumed command of New York City Opera in 2010, he opened his tenure with a Christopher Alden production of Don Giovanni. Now, Mr. Steel and Mr. Alden have given us the second of three operas written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and librettist Lorenzo da Ponte. Così fan tutte (The title loosely translates as "That's what all the girls do.") is a dramma giocoso, a dark comedy of infidelity and forbidden love. The spare production was mounted in a theater ideal for chamber opera, the 600-seat Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Rather than the usual clowning and drawing-room sets, Mr. Alden presented this opera as a stark, often disturbing exploration of men's attitudes towards women. Set in what appears to be an outdoor park (illuminated at times by ugly sodium lights), this staging is strange from the start, presenting the bet between Don Alfonso (Rod Gilfry) and the soldiers Gugliemo and Ferrando as a Faustian game that ultimately destroys all players. 

This staging of Don Alfonso's "school for lovers" slowly stripped the lovers of ethics, morals and dignity. They lose everything, including their clothes (and possibly, their sanity) as the revalations crash down in the final scene. The final image: all six characters flopped on a bench, self-medicating with one bottle of champagne, indicates that in this game, there are no winners.

In this production, Don Alonso is a Mephistophelean figure, suave and seductive as he leads the two pairs of lovers on a path toward ruined relationships. Mr. Gilfry, whose long experience in Mozart includes recordings of all three "Da Ponte operas (with John Eliot Gardiner) made his City Opera debut with these shows. His preence here is something of a coup for the troubled company.

Marie Lenormand took on the challenging, ungrateful part of Despina, bringing new dimensions to the sister's maid, the opera's trickster role. Ms. Lenormand executed some impressive vocal filigree and some stunning costume changes, including the beginning of Act II where she tricked out in a suit and bowler hat. Wielding a riding crop, she made Mr. Gilfry prance in a bear costume--on loan from a production of The Bartered Bride?

Sara Jakubiak took on the difficult role of Fiordiligi with a strong, penetrating soprano that was agile enough to handle the treacherous leaps written into the part. She was at her most moving in the work's opera seria passages, particularly "Per pietà, ben mio, perdona," . In this Act II aria, Ms. Jakubiak capturing the pathos of a woman torn between her fiancée and her new "Albanian" boyfriend.

Jennifer Holloway provided contrast as Dorabella. She accented the intellectual side of the character in the first act. Dorabella is the first of the two sisters to admit to falling in love with her new beau Ms. Holloway made the most of her Act II duet with Gugliemo, letting her pliant instrument dive gracefully into the long, seductive vocal lines. 

Allan Clayton (Ferrando) and Philip Cutlip (Gugliemo) did their best not to make their characters interchangeable, despite the fact that pulling that very switch lies at the heart of this opera's plot. Mr. Clayton was a potent presence in his Act II "betrayal" scene. Mr. Cutlip was warm, seductive and very funny in the early acts, but went foetal in the final scene as the truth came out.

Mr. Alden's vision was helped by the compelling conducting of Christian Curnyn. Leading a scaled-down orchestra that was tightly packed in to the theater's pit, Mr. Curnyn favored swift, driving tempos that never gave the music room to breathe. The singers kept up. The orchestra showed itself to be in good form on Thursday night, although certain notes in the brass left something to be desired.

Confessions of a Mozart Addict

The great composer as drug of choice.
by Paul Pelkonen

Trust him. He's got what you need: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

OK. I admit it. I'm a Mozart addict.

The works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart take up one and a half shelves of my CD collection. Stacked, they'd make a collection about six feet high. Taller if you add the Complete Mozart Edition from Brilliant Classics, which goes nicely next to the older Complete Edition put out by Philips. (That one is incomplete--I'm missing a few sets. All in good time.)

I have (at last count) multiple complete recordings of Le Nozze di Figaro, (seven) Don Giovanni (six)  and Die Zauberflöte (seven). Those three operas never diminish for me upon repeated listenings. Many more have passed through my shelves in the 20 years I've been collecting CDs.


I have several Entführung aus dem Serails (three), Così fan tuttes (five) and Clemenza di Titos (two). I even own four: (counted 'em) four recordings of Idomoneo. Though it's not my favorite Mozart opera it's still one of the best examples of serious 18th century opera, and should be performed more.

I have piano concertos, symphonies and piano sonatas. Serenades, divertissements, and A Musical Joke.

I even own two recordings of his vulgar little Canon in B Flat Major: "Leck mich im arsch."

My first live Mozart opera was probably The Magic Flute although I seem to remember a City Opera attempt at the fragment L'Oca del Cairo.

My first date with a girl in high school: I took her to four hours of Le nozze di Figaro.

And I've been to Salzburg and Vienna, weeping at a performance in the Hohensalzburg of that old party favorite Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

I know the details of his life. The real ones, not the dramatized falsehoods in Amadeus. I know that he was a genius, and no saint. His unusual gifts led to an unusual childhood, and 37 bright-burning years immersed in the creation of music that has lived in the consciousness of Western thoughts for over two centuries.

I'm hooked on Mozart....and I'm proud of it.

With the exception of the month of August and the occasional opera review, I don't get to write much about Mozart on this blog. But his music, with its rich humanity, endless inventiveness and capacity to surprise the ear even when you've heard it an uncountable number of times never ceases to amaze.

Even a turgid performance of one of the symphonies (like the one the other week) offers opportunities to analyze and marvel the perfect, crystalline structures of notes: houses of cards that glow in rich colors and never collapse.

Yep. I'm addicted. Thank God.

City Opera Preview: Cosí fan tutte

The City Opera moves back to Manhattan with a new take on Mozart's classic.
by Paul Pelkonen

"Who did it at the end? They all did?"
--Corporal Walter "Radar" O'Reilly on M*A*S*H.

A kiss before they leave Brooklyn.
Promotional image for Cosí fan tutte © 2012 New York City Opera.

With this new production of Mozart's Cosí fan tutte directed by wunderkind Christopher Alden the New York City Opera hopes to duplicate the success of their 2009 Don Giovanni. This is the second of a projected trilogy of Mozart's operas, all directed by Mr. Alden. Le Nozze di Figaro is planned for a future season.

Cosí (the title is based on a line from The Marriage of Figaro)  is an intimate opera, the story of two callow suitors who decide to disguise themselves and switch fiancées in order to win a bet. That makes it admirably suited to George Steel's newly mobile New York City Opera, who have gambled their future by leaving Lincoln Center and taking their shows to various venues located around New York City.

This is the company's first production at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater, located in the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The Lynch Theater is about two blocks from the company's former home at the (former) New York State Theater. It can seat 605 opera-goers.

This cast features three singers new to the City Opera. in soprano Jennifer Holloway, who makes her company debut as Dorabella. Tenor Allan Clayton joins the company as Ferrando. Sara Jakubiak is Fiordiligi. Veteran Mozart baritone Rodney Gilfry takes the role of Don Alfonso. Christian Curnyn conducts.


Cosí opens March 18 and will run for four performances only.


Recording Recommendations:

Of the three Da Ponte operas, Cosí was the last to enter the standard repertory. There are many recordings of the opera, but just as many are out of print. Here are two good ones.

English Baroque Soloists cond. John Eliot Gardiner (DG Archiv, 1993)
Fiordiligi:  Amanda Roocroft
Dorabella: Rosa Mannion
Despina: Eiran James
Gugliemo: Rodney Gilfry
Ferrando: Rainer Trost
Don Alfonso: Carlos Feller
This is part of John Eliot Gardiner's classic cycle of Mozart operas on period instruments, with a young Rodney Gilfry taking the role of Gugliemo. Crystalline sound and an appendix with all the alternate numbers included.

Chamber Orchestra of Europe cond. Sir Georg Solti (Decca, 1996)
Fiordiligi: Renée Fleming
Dorabella: Anne Sofie von Otter
Despina: Adelina Scarabelli
Gugliemo: Olaf Bär
Ferrando: Frank Lopardo
Don Alfonso: Michele Pertusi
An all-star effort from Decca. This was Solti's second recording of the opera, made with an all-star cast of hopeful young singers including one Renée Fleming. Sparkling acoustic and for Fleming fans.

DVD Review: The Old Switcheroo

Così fan tutte from La Scala.

Dolores Ziegler (left) and Daniela Dessì in a frame-grab from Così fan tutte.
Image © 1998 OpusArte/Teatro alla Scala.

As Mostly Mozart opens this week, it's time to blow the dust off this underrated 1998 film of Così fan tutte from La Scala. Made during Riccardo Muti's tenure as music director, this fizzy performance is notable for an excellent ensemble cast and the pert Despina of Adelina Scarabelli.

Despina is a complex role, the maid-servant who sets Da Ponte's whirling plot in motion. She must be trusted confidante, smart servant, and immediately the most appealing character to the audience. As the female equivalent of Figaro in the earlier collaboration between Mozart and da Ponte, Despina is a challenging part for even the starriest singer.

With her low-lying, rapid-fire soprano, Ms. Scarabelli meets all of the requirements. Her "Una donna a quindici anni" is marvelously delivered, earning deserved "bravo" cries from the Milan audience. But she is also strong when disguised as the mesmerist and the notary in the finales of each act, delivering the dialogue with good comic acting and a minimum of irritating vocal effect.

She is surrounded by an excellent cast. Daniela Dessì and Delores Ziegler are a compelling pair as Fiordiligi and Dorabella, generating onstage chemistry with both of their leading men. A regular singer at the house during the Muti years, Ms. Dessì leads off "A ugarda della sorella" with sweet, carefully formed tone. She is well-matched with Ms. Ziegler, and the two voices blend well.

Alessandro Corbelli and Josef Kundlak are the two fellas who dress up as Albanians and go through all sorts of plot contrivances in order to see if their partners are willing to trade. The tenor and baritone (respectively) make the most of Da Ponte's cynical humor. Mr. Corbelli is especially compelling in the later acts, as the would-be girlfriend-swappers discover that they may not want to switch back. Claudio Desderi plays it fairly straight as Don Alonso, the old gentlemen whose bet with these two cads sets the story in motion.

This production was shot in Mr. Muti's salad days, when the raven-haired conductor ruled Scala with an iron fist and a velvet baton. Michael Hampe presents a traditional production in authentic-looking period costume, keeping the opera in its correct geographical setting. In today's age of regietheater run wild, this simple approach makes this DVD refreshing. The only device is a blue curtain which creates a theater-within-a-theater. But even this serves a dramatic purpose, allowing for quick changes and theatrical asides to the audience from Despina and Don Alonso.

Riccardo Muti is an underrated Mozart conductor whose recordings were drowned in the flood of major label releases at the end of the 20th century. Here, he leads Mozart's music in a crisp, even style, driving the action forward and setting an expert pace for the singers. It's a little fast when it has to be, but the big lyric moments in this extraordinary score are allowed to blossom fully.

One complaint. In the finale, the maestro makes a ghostly appearance over the stage, burned in digitally so the viewer can watch both maestro and performers. But the effect distracts mightily from the fine staging presented here, coming as it does at the most inopportune moments.