Libretto by
Lorenzo da Ponte
Orchestra of
the Royal Opera
House conducted by
Colin Davis
Director
Jonathan Miller
Designed
and lit by
Jonathan Miller
and colleagues
The Royal Opera Chorus directed by
Renato Balsadonna
Ferrando
Matthew Polenzani
Guglielmo
Lorenzo Regazzo
Don Alfonso
Thomas Allen
Fiordiligi
Dorothea
Roschmann
Dorabella
Elina Garanca
Despina
Rebecca Evans
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Cosi Fan Tutte
by Amadeus Mozart
Royal Opera House
Covent garden
14 - 22 July 2007
Jonathan Miller's very witty and inventive Cosi Fan Tutte both surprised audiences and delighted them on its first appearance in 1995, and this fifth revival reminds us, if we needed reminding, what a brilliant opera director Miller is - making it hard to accept his absence from the scene in his homeland in recent years, where he could be and should be bringing his fresh, acutely intelligent and wonderfully funny sensibility to this highest of high arts.
At first Miller seems to lift Cosi Fan Tutte out of its Enlightenment frame as an essay in social science in order to render it as a straightforwardly truthful piece about human frailty and - in the end: for there is a sudden dark hint of a failure of rapprochement - ambiguity. But of course, the hymn to reason at the close, and Don Alfonso's role as the servant of frankness about the mismatch between romantic illusion and human reality, keeps the opera's roots firmly in the Enlightenment's scepticism, so that the abiding impression is that Miller has cleverly revealed the opera's point to be the humanisation of the Enlightenment and not only the enlightening of humans.
The triumph of this revival lies with the cast, every member of which is outstanding. Thomas Allen has made the role of Don Alfonso absolutely his own: suave, worldly-wise, immaculately clothed in tolerant cynicism, a sense of humour, and a double-breasted suit. As her whole-hearted performance emphatically shows, the beautiful Elina Garanca is an actress as well as a singer, and the same applies to the two gallants, wonderfully played as well as sung by Lorenzo Regazzo and Matthew Polenzani. The same is even more true of Rebecca Evans as the saucily cheerful Despina.
But the star of the evening was undoubtedly Dorothea Roschmann, whose singing was an object lesson in control, range, accuracy and vigorous attack: a Mozart performance of perfection, quivering with energy and conviction, accepting and triumphing over every challenge of the highly demanding score. She was superb. Add to this Matthew Polenzani's wonderful contribution in the exquisite tenor aria of the first act, and by that act's end it was evident that this was one of Covent Garden's great nights.
With such music and such performances it matters little that the set is so unattractive. The one design feature that really works is the gallants disguises not as Albanians but as Heavy Metal rockers, complete with full-arm tattoos, long hair controlled by sweat-bands, and dark glasses. The sheer implausibility of their being able to seduce the two women from their vows as thus presented adds to the comedy of the whole, and throws an extra dimension of light on the pace and raciness of the music, performed to the usual excellent standards of the Covent Garden orchestra under Colin Davis, whose Mozart renditions are surely the benchmark. AC Grayling
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