Mozart opera a crowd favorite

Così fan Tutte laced with history, debuts supertitles

It's a rare occasion that opera makes its way to the foreground. With Così fan Tutte taking the stage at Hall this weekend, however, this age-old art form prevails.

Così fan Tutte, a bittersweet comic opera, will be sung in Italian with English supertitles. Internationally recognized conductor, Paul Polivnick, is leading the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra while Jonathon Field, a man who is quickly emerging as one of America's most sought after stage dirctors and currently is assistant professor of music here at Oberlin, is the director.

This wonderful work features one of Mozart's most sublime and masterful scores set to an original libretto by Lozenzo da Ponte. The opera is the third of the Mozart-da Ponte operas (the first two being Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni). Così fan Tutte was preformed five times for its original run, because the sudden death of Emporer Joseph II, who comissioned the piece, caused theaters to shut down for mourning. After this brief original run, it disappeared almost entirely due to what was deemed its immoral content.

Well meaning but destructive Victorian directors revamped the opera for public consumption in the 1800s. They thoroughly rewrote, gutted, and bowdlerized the original libretto, so that it was nearly unrecognizable. They rearranged the music to the point of meaninglessness. It wasn't until this century that the opera surfaced in its masterful original form.

The story is about two young soldiers, Ferrando and Guglielmo, who are engaged to be married to two sisters, Fiordiligi and Dorabella, respectivly. Don Alfonso, their worldly-wise old friend, challenges them to a bet that the women will not be faithful when their lovers are away. The two officers agree to the bet and the wily Alfonso has them pretend to go off to war and then disguise themselves as Albanians to woo each other's fiancees. Then things get crazy.

The Così fan Tutte production features Oberlin Conservatory students double cast in the principal roles. The casts alternate performances, with one cast appearing Wednesday and Saturday and the other on Friday and Sunday. The tight-knit ensemble includes the sisters Fiordiligi (seniors Rhiannon Giddens and Angela Baade) and Dorabella (seniors Marie Lenormand and Rosalie Sullivan) and their fiancees Guglielmo (seniors Hugh Russel AD and Christopher Holmes) and Ferrando (senior Daniel Paget and junior John Rodger); the meddlers Despina (juniors Erika Telano AD and Vanessa Chaves) and Don Alfonso (juniors Micheal Chipman AD and Micheal Shawn Preacely). The Chorus of helpful peasants consists of : sophomore Benjamin Cahn, sophomore Elizabeth Floyd, sophomore Rebecca Fromherz, sophomore Jennifer Kew, senior Charity Johnson, first-year Scott Skiba, junior Jon Stinson, and sophomore Peter Tantsits.

As the first opera in Hall to be accompanied by English supertitles, Così fan Tutte, already bathed in an international history, will also make history this weekend at Oberlin.