New York Metropolitan Opera – Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte. 10/21/2005.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center – Dress Circle, Set G112.

Conductor – James Levine; Ferrando – Matthew Polenzani, Guglielmo – Mariusz Kwiecien, Don Alfonso – Thomas Allen, Fiordiligi – Barbara Frittoli, Dorabella – Magdalena Kozena, Depina – Nuccia Focile.

Story: Don Alfonso, friend of Ferrando and Guglielmo, makes a bet with the soon-to-be married young men that their fiancées won’t stay faithful. The two men pretend to go to war and come back disguised as foreigners, each trying to woo the fiancé of the other. With help from Don Alfonso and Despina the maid, they both succeed. In the end they end up getting married anyway.

Many people know of Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte, but very few have actually seen it. A main reason has to be the length of the opera. With the one intermission, this performance lasted over 3 ½ hours. Imagine the demand the opera must have on the conductor, the singers, and the orchestra.

Tonight’s performance was conducted by James Levine, a world-renowned conductor who somehow finds time to lead multiple orchestras. He is also the conductor in the remake of Disney’s Fantasia. This was the first time I saw him. Given the distance from the stage, I didn’t have a very good view, but he was just like what you would expect. The orchestra and the performance were conducted with precision.

The sets were generally simple, especially by the usual elaborate Met standards. However, the boats in the background that took the soldiers away were done nicely. They appeared to morph from inside a painting to real objects, one even sailed away. I suspect that was done with a screen and lighting effects; interesting to watch nonetheless.

The tunes in this opera are barely on the other side of “singable”. The arias in some of Mozart’s other operas (Don Giovanni and the Marriage of Figaro, for instance) come easily. The singing was excellent, the acting was realistic. Don Alfonso, however, came across as weak on occasion. Despina the maid often times stole the show. She drew a hearty laugh when she demonstrated the hard life of a servant by pulling the house onto the set. She disguised as a doctor and a notary in her effort to trick the ladies. All were done with the right touch of hilarity.

I also thought the opera had arias that were a little too long, and could do away with a few of the mad scenes. That would help cut down on the duration also.

The opera works very well as a comedy, but gets into murky territory when it tries to go beyond that. It had to be a very weak commitment for people to marry someone else after a one day absence of their fiancées. And for the fiancées to take them back immediately speaks of a more generous or nonchalant spirit than anyone’s I know. I can’t speak for women, but I would be very offended if I were one by how women were portrayed. “Cosi Fan Tutte”, after all, means “All women act like that”. Given the great music and the generally excellent performance by the artists, it was a real regret that I came away disappointed at the story and the writers’ (composer and librettist) dark view of human nature. We are better than that.