Most recent performance
There are currently no scheduled performances of Così fan tutte. It was last on stage 22 September—19 October 2016 as part of the Autumn 2016/17 season.
The Story
Ferrando loves Dorabella and Guglielmo loves Fiordiligi – but their friend Don Alfonso is sceptical. He offers the young men a bet: given the opportunity, their loves will prove unfaithful in less than a day. Confident of their girlfriends’ fidelity, Ferrando and Guglielmo accept.
Read more… (Contains spoilers)
Background
Così fan tutte was Mozart’s third and final collaboration with the librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, following Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni. Like its predecessors, Così exemplifies the heights opera can reach when the skills of composer and librettist are perfectly matched. But Così’s reception has always been more complex than that of the other Mozart/Da Ponte operas, with the opera variously considered immoral, unfinished, cruel or simply odd since its 1790 premiere. Now finally accepted as one of Mozart’s masterpieces, it is celebrated as much for its nuanced depiction of love as for its glorious music – a near continuous roll-call of favourites, including the terzetto ‘Soave sia il vento’ and the arias ‘Come scoglio’, ‘Tradito, schernito’ and ‘È amore un ladroncello’.
German director Jan Philipp Gloger makes his Royal Opera debut with this new production of Così fan tutte, following such previous credits as Der fliegende Holländer for the Bayreuth Festival and Der Rosenkavalier for Dutch National Opera. He and his team of regular collaborators take their inspiration from Mozart and Da Ponte’s alternative title for the opera: ‘The School for Lovers’. Don Alfonso, a mischievous theatrical impresario, leads the young lovers on a journey through their emotions, using all the resources of his theatre in a quest to prove to them that, in Gloger’s words, ‘love is not a God-given thing, but something that we have to fight for, find, define, create and dream newly, almost every day’.
News and features
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Why opera isn't all tragedies and trauma
22 May 2017There's more to the art form than doom and gloom, as a number of comic gems prove.
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Renée Fleming, Così fan tutte and 4.48 Psychosis nominated for Olivier Awards 2017
6 March 2017The Royal Opera has received three nominations in total.
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Semyon Bychkov on Mozart’s Così fan tutte: ‘It’s anything except what you expected’
17 October 2016From the complex plot to the intricate details in the score, the conductor shares his views on Mozart’s ‘feminist’ opera.
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Mozart’s Così fan tutte to be relayed live to cinemas on 17 October 2016
11 October 2016Semyon Bychkov conducts a cast of young, up-and-coming talent in a new production of Mozart’s opera exploring the nature of love.
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Listen: ‘A deep insight into who we really are’ – The vital life lessons of Mozart's Così fan tutte
3 October 2016Over the years, Mozart's opera has been derided as vulgar and clumsy, but for director Jan Philipp Gloger, it offers unrivalled psychological insights.
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Così fan tutte musical highlight: ‘Come scoglio’
30 September 2016Our one-stop guide to Mozart’s exquisitely written aria, both an insight into and a commentary on the character Fiordiligi.