love is a battlefield

OPERA REVIEWS: Cosi Fan Tutte & Lucia Di Lammermoor

When it comes down to contrast, little is more striking than the difference between two recent productions of Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte and Donizetti's Lucia Di Lammermoor. The operas themselves couldn't be less alike: Cosi is a lighthearted comedic romp about two soldiers who go into disguise to test their lovers' fidelity, while Lucia tells the tragic - bloodily so - story of a young girl forced into an arranged marriage by her selfish brother. But it was the shows themselves - Covent Garden produced the Mozart, while English National Opera tackled Donizetti - which provided the greatest dissimilarities.

To begin, the set and costumes for Cosi were shockingly dull. In an attempt to reveal the "timelessness" of Mozart's opera, director Jonathan Miller updated the story to the modern world: the set consisted of an almost entirely bare stage, with the exception of a whitewashed wall in the background, a sofa, a pile of pillows on the ground, and a table. The female leads, Dorabella (Nina Surguladze) and Fiordiligi (Sally Matthews), were adorned in trousers and carried cell phones, while their boyfriends, Ferrando (Charles Castronovo) and Guglielmo (Troy Cook) leave dressed in army fatigues and stride back onstage as long-haired, aviator-clad rock stars. Although this preposterous premise offers myriad opportunities for comedy (the idea in itself of these macho men singing tender arias is ridiculous to the point of hilarity), the cast - despite being fantastic singers all, especially Matthews, who soared to stunningly high notes while retaining a graceful sense of fluidity and ease - were frustratingly flat, presumably having nothing to work with. Only the servant, Despina (Helene Schneiderman), offered something resembling acting. In the end, Cosi fell prey to the most common complaint about opera: that it is long, self-indulgent, and caters only to those who know the music. Anyone unfamiliar with Mozart's opera prior to seeing this performance would have been bored to tears.

English National Opera's production of Lucia, on the other hand, offered a sense of what opera should truly be like. Directed by David Alden, the production unfolded on a darkly lit stage, eerie and heavy with foreboding. The sets were admittedly sparse but effective: the famous "mad scene," when Lucia murders her husband and descends into insanity, unfolded on a smaller stage - almost like a children's theatre - while the other characters sat, stoic, in folding chairs around it. And, most importantly, the cast were not only talented singers - Anna Christy as Lucia in particular, whose despairing wails during the aforementioned "mad scene" were distressing but transfixing - but also skilled actors, fitting into their characters smoothly and allowing the story to breathe naturally. There were some incongruities, most noticably an unexplained and uncomfortable sexual tension between Lucia and her brother (Brian Mulligan), but on the whole Lucia shone, even in the darkness.

Cosi Fan Tutte score: 40

Lucia Di Lammermoor score: 80