The Stage

Cosi fan tutte

Published Monday 1 February 2010 at 11:10 by Edward Bhesania

While Jonathan Miller prepares his updating of L’elisir d’amore to fifties America for English National Opera, his 1995 Cosi fan tutte for Covent Garden - transported from 18th-century Naples to the present day - receives its sixth revival, under Daniel Dooner. The fascination with the mobile phone and laptop may now seem a touch clunky, as might the arrival of a TV news crew to film Ferrando and Guglielmo’s departure to war, but Miller’s point remains sound - that the faithfulness or otherwise of lovers is a concern that transcends time and place.

Troy Cook (Guglielmo) and Nino Surguladze (Dorabella) in Cosi Fan Tutte at the Royal Opera House Photo: Tristram Kenton

There’s plenty of scope for humour in this production, not least in the soldiers’ return disguised as long-haired rock dudes, complete with air-guitar performances, but Miller (and now Dooner) also amply point up the emotional turmoil that results from temptation. William Shimell as Don Alfonso may not be of lustrous tone, but his calculated yet suave orchestration of the social experiment to test the fiancees’ constancy is masterly. Nino Surguladze’s pouty, comic Dorabella is a foil to Sally Matthews’s rather more staid Fiordiligi, and her brighter, more open sound contrasts with the latter’s remarkable lower-register richness. Their sisterly petting and squabbling is keenly observed. Charles Castronovo’s Ferrando has a more ringing quality than Troy Cook’s Guglielmo - making for a properly pace-halting Un’ aura amorosa. American mezzo-soprano Helen Schneiderman - a former Dorabella in this production - fails to deliver a punch either as the maid Despina or in her comic intrusions as doctor and notary.

Julia Jones directs the orchestra with fine attention to mood and detail, drawing taut playing in an auspicious Royal Opera debut.