Wrestling with Liove:
Così fan tutte, the last of Mozart’s three brilliant works with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, is an operatic masterpiece, but it hasn’t always been regarded with such favor. After a successful premiere in 1790, it was infrequently performed until it entered the standard repertoire after World War II.
So why wasn’t it embraced with the same fervor as Don Giovanni and Le nozze di Figaro? Così offers a steady stream of glorious music, including some of Mozart’s most sublime ensembles and arias. But Mozart’s patron, Emperor Joseph II of Austria, died shortly after the premiere. His younger brother Leopold, who succeeded him, was not a fan of comic opera, favoring instead church music and serious opera—a fact that contributed to Mozart’s late works, the Requiem and La Clemenza di Tito. Nineteenth century audiences found the prospect of Così’s two young heroines being unfaithful to their fiancés risqué, even immoral.
But Così’s rambunctious story of disguises, tricks, and lovers’ tests can also be challenging for audiences today. Written in the eighteenth century, with a title that translates to “That’s how women are,” it’s no surprise that some overt sexism is baked in. And the overall view of human nature is surprisingly cynical.
For this production, I’ve chosen to focus on Così fan tutte as a coming-of-age story. The subtitle is, after all, “The School for Lovers.” These are teenage couples, high-school age in our time (such young courtships are accurate for the original period), learning about love, choices, and their own potential. Fiordiligi, Dorabella, Ferrando, and Guglielmo are innocents, and they are taught painful lessons by the slightly older Don Alfonso and Despina.
For a contemporary audience, the original setting of eighteenth-century Naples could be distancing. A more recent time and place offers opportunities to address the sexism while presenting recognizable relationships. But to allow for the young lovers’ journey, I wanted to find a time before the internet, when there was a difference between the world of adolescents and adults, innocence and experience. And finally, I wanted a setting where the battle of the sexes was dynamic and the comedy could flourish.
And so we are in a community gym—a converted boat warehouse on the beach—in Yarmouth, Massachusetts, in 1980. It is the dawn of the professional wrestling craze, which began in that town, with costumed combatants tossing each other off the ropes at the new Cape Cod Coliseum just up the road. The Rocky franchise is in full swing, and Conan the Barbarian is about to hit theaters. At the same moment, the female fitness revolution arrives: with Jane Fonda leading the way, girls and women around the country are hitting the mats in neon leotards and leg warmers. (Coincidentally, we happen to have among our cast a boxer, a martial arts expert, and two black belts in karate, one of whom is a granddaughter of wrestling royalty.)
High school seniors and Sea Scout cadets Ferrando and Guglielmo work out under the guidance of the gym owner Don Alfonso, a former boxer. Despina, the manager with her own dreams of leaving for the big city, counsels Fiordiligi and Dorabella, the sweethearts of the young men. At stake is a heartless trick on the girls conjured by the embittered Alfonso, which includes a bet on whether they can remain faithful. The combatants head to their corners, and the match begins.
— © Renée Fleming
