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Saturday, July 26, 2025

Everybody does it

by

20150625

The Clas­si­cal Mu­sic De­vel­op­ment Foun­da­tion of T&T (CMDFTT) launched its Opera Fes­ti­val and tenth an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions last Fri­day night at Queen's Hall, St Ann's, with a pro­duc­tion of Mozart's pop­u­lar com­ic opera Cosi Fan Tutte, the li­bret­to for which comes gift-wrapped for a lo­cal au­di­ence raised on bac­cha­nal, horn­ing and ta­ban­ca and whose cast boasts sweet men, lyrics men, horner men and women.

Those opera buffs who cher­ish Mozart's ebul­lient­ly sparkling over­ture, de­liv­ered by a full or­ches­tra might ini­tial­ly have been dis­ap­point­ed to see the or­ches­tra pit bare ex­cept for two pi­anos and con­duc­tor June Nathaniel. Yet cel­e­brat­ed New York voice coach and pi­anist Dr Jef­frey Mid­dle­ton and his Big Ap­ple fel­low-ac­com­pa­nist By­ron Sean Bur­ford fin­gered the score mas­ter­ful­ly, al­low­ing the au­di­ence to fo­cus on the voic­es and stage ac­tion, which more than com­pen­sat­ed for the ab­sence of the wood­wind, strings and brass we usu­al­ly as­so­ciate with Mozart.

The or­ches­tral ac­com­pa­ni­ment was echoed by a sparse yet func­tion­al set de­sign: 1960s pop art style back screen of trees stage left (sug­gest­ing the gar­den and ex­te­ri­or scenes), with two mar­ble-pan­elled screens, stage right (pre­sum­ably for in­te­ri­or scenes). There's noth­ing wrong with a rel­a­tive­ly bare stage, yet the open­ing scene clus­tered round a diminu­tive card ta­ble at the ex­treme left of the stage, left a cen­tre stage vac­u­um, which was for­tu­nate­ly quick­ly filled with the mo­men­tum of the three male and three fe­male lead voic­es.

Whether by de­sign, or for­tu­itous syn­er­gy, the com­bi­na­tion of these six lead voic­es (the young blades with Cana­di­an bari­tone Justin Welsh as Gugliel­mo and Chilean tenor Diego Godoy-Gutier­rez as Fer­ran­do; their sweet­hearts the sis­ters, with Trinidad's star col­oratu­ra so­pra­no Na­talia Dop­well as Fiordili­gi and com­pa­tri­ot mez­zo so­pra­no Megan Pol­lon­ais as Dora­bel­la; the two schemers: Tri­ni bari­tone Daniel De­Cranie-Pierre as Don Al­fon­so ma­nip­u­la­tor ex­tra­or­di­naire and Tri­ni so­pra­no Stephanie Na­hous as his mer­ce­nary side­kick, the maid De­spina, dou­bling up as doc­tor and no­tary) pro­vid­ed a dy­nam­ics of sound, in which in­di­vid­ual styles both com­ple­ment­ed and aug­ment­ed each oth­er. This pro­duc­tive com­bi­na­tion gave us much of the colour and depth nor­mal­ly sup­plied by a full or­ches­tra.

The premise of the Loren­zo Da Ponte's li­bret­to–that all women are fick­le–(as in the ti­tle which has gen­er­al­ly been trans­lat­ed as "this is what all women do" but which in re­al­i­ty holds good for both sex­es) is a well-worn mo­tif from lit­er­a­ture and life, as is the fi­anc�e-swap­ping theme, trace­able back to Boc­ca­cio's De­cameron and Shake­speare's Cym­be­line. Throw in the el­e­ment of dis­guise and the com­ic pos­si­bil­i­ties are bound­less.

The li­bret­to, which was re­gard­ed as risqu� and even amoral at times (par­tic­u­lar­ly in the con­text of 19th cen­tu­ry moral­i­ty), quite pos­si­bly rais­es dif­fer­ent is­sues for a post­mod­ern au­di­ence, heirs to both the sex­u­al lib­er­a­tion of the 1960s and raised in a cli­mate of in­creas­ing gen­der equal­i­ty.

While the com­ic po­ten­tial of dis­guised iden­ti­ty re­mains in­tact, we can hope­ful­ly now move be­yond the im­plic­it misog­y­nism (the in­con­stan­cy of women) and the hyp­o­crit­i­cal dou­ble stan­dards of La Ponte and read this com­ic opera as a cri­tique of ro­man­tic or court­ly love and an analy­sis of loy­al­ty, trust, de­cep­tion, be­tray­al, de­sire, temp­ta­tion, or quite sim­ply, hu­man fal­li­bil­i­ty and the tol­er­ance and for­give­ness re­quired to live with it.

The dove­tailed swift-paced plot sweeps per­form­ers and au­di­ence along to­geth­er, neat­ly jux­ta­pos­ing the al­most maudlin sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty of Act One, with the tightrope of farce and im­pend­ing cat­a­stro­phe in act two. As Don Al­fon­so, lynch pin of the pro­posed de­cep­tion (the two of­fi­cers Gugliemo and Fer­ran­do "go off to war" and re­turn dis­guised as Al­ba­ni­ans to woo each oth­er's fi­anc�e) the young Daniel De­Cranie-Pierre suc­cess­ful­ly ex­ud­ed the ma­tu­ri­ty re­quired by his role, mak­ing the dup­ing of his two prot�g�es en­tire­ly cred­i­ble.

For the unini­ti­at­ed, Al­fon­so's ex­ag­ger­at­ed fa­cial ex­pres­sions gave valu­able clues to his un­fold­ing web of de­cep­tion but may have prompt­ed some to in­ter­ro­gate his mo­ti­va­tion. Justin Welsh and Diego Godoy-Gutier­rez grew in­to their roles as the brash Romeos of Act One (Gutier­rez's cut­ting tenor, a per­fect foil for Welsh's more lyri­cal bari­tone de­liv­ery), whose test of their fi­ancees' fi­deli­ty threat­ens to ex­plode in their faces dur­ing the in­creas­ing hys­ter­i­cal ten­sion of Act Two, which at points de­scends in­to pure slaptick com­e­dy.

How­ev­er, the suc­cess of Cosi Fan Tutte in­evitably hinges on the per­for­mance of the two sis­ters Fiordili­gi and Dora­bel­la, who the au­di­ence is in­vit­ed ini­tial­ly to sym­pa­thise with as lovelorn damsels in Act One, and then to de­spise as weak, de­cep­tive bim­bos in Act Two.

The pair­ing of Dop­well and Pol­lo­nias proved ex­cel­lent cast­ing: from the ear­ly duet Ah guar­da sorel­la–"Ah look sis­ter") Pol­lon­ais' com­mand­ing mez­zo so­pra­no sug­gest­ing the ex­tent of her ro­man­ti­cism and ar­dour, against Dop­well's su­perbly con­trolled col­oratu­ra, which evoked the nu­ances nec­es­sary for the au­di­ence to ac­cept her ap­par­ent be­tray­al of Gugliel­mo in Act Two.

The open­ing quin­tet: Sen­to, o Dio, che questo piede � restio–"I feel, oh God, that my foot is re­luc­tant") which launch­es Al­fon­so's ruse, alert­ed the au­di­ence to scin­til­lat­ing en­sem­ble singing they could ex­pect through­out the per­for­mance, with in­di­vid­ual voic­es sen­si­tive­ly cre­at­ing the nec­es­sary spaces for all, rather than one to dom­i­nate.

The sis­ters' ta­ban­ca and an over­dose of bleed­ing hearts is com­i­cal­ly jux­ta­posed against the maid De­spina's prag­ma­tism and Stephanie Na­hous gave a dark un­der­cur­rent to her role invit­ing us to pon­der the prob­lem­at­ic gap be­tween moral­i­ty and in­ten­tion, re­al­i­ty and de­sire, what­ev­er the dom­i­nant com­ic mode.

The con­trast be­tween Fiordili­gi's Come scoglio – "Like a rock" de­c­la­ra­tion of con­stan­cy does noth­ing to dis­cour­age the "Al­ban­ian suit­ors" and their ridicu­lous pea­cock strut­ting, glo­ri­ous­ly sub­vert­ing the over sac­cha­rine taste of court­ly love with their lu­di­crous at­tempt at poi­son­ing them­selves and De­spina's equal­ly far­ci­cal Mes­mer-in­spired re­vival with a mag­net.

De­spina's aria Una don­na a quindi­ci an­ni – "A fif­teen-year-old woman" sets the tone for Act Two, which for all its com­ic ten­sion (as the "Al­ba­ni­ans" now woo each oth­er's fi­anc�e) bal­ances the push and pull of de­sire and temp­ta­tion with in­sights in­to de­cep­tion and be­tray­al, pitch­ing the ide­al against re­al. De­spina's ad­vice on how to play a man, have your cake and eat it, in­dulge in a lit­tle naugh­ti­ness to stave off bore­dom, might be tak­en lo­cal­ly as good ad­vice for prospec­tive horner girls or more broad­ly and dark­ly as anachro­nis­tic male chau­vin­ism.

Com­e­dy has al­ways been a ve­hi­cle for se­ri­ous is­sues and if there is a con­cep­tu­al flaw in Cosi Fan Tutte, we may find it in the de­noue­ment, or maybe it's just symp­to­matic of La Ponte's un­will­ing­ness to ad­dress the fact that in­fi­deli­ty is an as­pect of the hu­man con­di­tion, rather than a fe­male fail­ing.

Al­though as in all come­dies and ro­mances there's the in­evitable hap­py end­ing, in which the sis­ters are rec­on­ciled with their lovers, one can't help but pon­der the un­re­solved is­sues this neat con­clu­sion gloss­es over. But then this CMDFTT pro­duc­tion, with­in its con­straints, tight­ly di­rect­ed by Dr Hilwig Helmer, ad­mirably gave food for thought be­yond the con­ven­tion­al end­ing. In­di­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly, ex­pe­ri­ence and nascent tal­ent pre­sent­ed a lo­cal au­di­ence with the rare op­por­tu­ni­ty of ex­pe­ri­enc­ing one of op­eras clas­sics.

The pro­duc­tion ends its run on Sun­day evening at 6 pm.

De­spina teach­es the sis­ters about se­duc­tion. PHO­TO: DANIEL GOMEZ


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