(Salzburg, Austria) There it was again: an image of a feather projected onto the scrim just like the one in Le nozze di Figaro.
And, on no, not another "angel" with wings on his back, only this time completely dressed in black. But wait, now there's also a female black angel, too.
And wasn't that the forest from Claus Guth's production of Don Giovanni peeping through the set in Guth's production of Così fan tutte this evening?
Yes, once you got past Guth's signature directorial touches, you actually got to enjoy tonight's performance of Così fan tutte in the Haus für Mozart.
Of course, Guth was trying to make connections between and self-references to his Salzburg stagings of the three Da Ponte-Mozart operas. And in that he succeeded. Così's dynamic duo of Guglielmo and Ferrando reminded one of the hell-bent Don Giovanni and his sidekick Leporello in Guth's production of the notorious lothario. And it was shades of Uli Kirsch in Le nozze (see Saturday, August 13) as Don Alfonso and Despina were played as very dark characters trying to control the outcome of situations just like some kind of master puppeteer.
But this was a Così that pushed one's thoughts about as far as suggestiveness could go. When the gals dirty themselves in the mud while singing about men and affairs, you know what that dirt stands for. And when Dorabella and the "disguised" Guglielmo (the latter with no shirt on) walk through a door together, you know what will take place behind that closed door. (Hint: they're not playing tiddly-winks.)
Not that everything made sense in Guth's production, mind you. How Fiordiligi and Dorabella didn't recognize the "unusual faces" of Guglielmo and Ferrando (they changed their clothes, and that was about it), is beyond belief.
Christian Schmidt's uniset allowed the action to play out on three levels, a staircase joining the bottom two levels with a forest visible upstage.
The musicianship and vocal blend of the cast was truly enjoyable: Maria Bengtsson (Fiordiligi), Canadian mezzo Michèle Losier (Dorabella), Christopher Maltman (Guglielmo), Alek Shrader (Ferrando), plus Bo Skovhus (Don Alfonso), and Anna Prohaska (Despina).
Marc Minkowski and his Les Musiciens du Louvre - Grenoble put in a very respectable performance. Of special note was Francesco Corti's imaginatively playful continuo work on the fortepiano.
On this day, there was no better way to spend Austria's national holiday in Salzburg, that's for sure.
Photo by Leonard Turnevicius: The cast of Mozart's Così fan tutte in the Haus für Mozart.
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