How do we deal with the amoral chess game of Così fan tutte amid the ruckus of #MeToo? The short answer is that it was never easy. Two women, tricked into infidelity by a bet; two men who condemn their lovers as if their own behaviour counted for nought; all pawns of a sleazy kingpin, Don Alfonso, who’s seen all, done all before. Mozart, accused of frivolity from on high, constructs a brittle symmetry out of foibles and lies, supremely aided by Lorenzo Da Ponte’s libretto. First you think it’s about misogyny. (“All women are like that”, as the title tells us.) Eventually you realise it’s about life itself, set to glorious music. Everyone gets their comeuppance.
In an updated staging by Oliver Platt, Guildhall School embraces the uneasiness head-on, absorbing it into the drama rather than hammering out crass contemporary parallels. This is wise. It leaves the humour, from slapstick to pure nasty, intact, while embedding the plot’s squeamish portrayal of women into every exchange, every lunge. Despina (a wonderfully animated Zoe Drummond), a barmaid in Don Alfonso’s gleaming steel-and-neon bar, readily takes cash from Alfonso (Christian Valle) but shows anger at being entangled in his cheap sport.
Guglielmo and Ferrando, in their daft rocker-cum-mariachi disguises, complete with droopy moustaches and grizzly wigs, launch themselves at each others’ girlfriend as if by god-given right. When one sees the other succeeding, physical tension runs high: a near fight breaks out. Sometimes played as indistinguishable, here they are sharply delineated, Ferrando really quite sensitive, Guglielmo brawny and knowing. Filipe Manu and Benson Wilson, both from New Zealand, made a convincing partnership.
Dorabella (Carmen Artaza) and Fiordiligi (Alexandra Lowe), one quick to succumb, the other more resistant but falling further, are shaped more strictly by Mozart’s music, their arias detailing their responses. Both Artaza and Lowe, in the first of two casts drawn from GSMD’s intensive postgraduate opera course, show rare, eye-catching talent, in singing and acting. Neither is fazed by the director’s stipulations: Dorabella sings while splayed on a pool table; Fiordiligi has to wipe the bar with a J-cloth while performing Per pietà, one of opera’s most elaborate arias. If you’re riddled with guilt and desire, shame and horror, it’s not a bad idea to do some cleaning.
Stylishly designed by Neil Irish with lighting by Rory Beaton, this Così is a terrific showcase for Guildhall, crisply conducted by the head of opera, Dominic Wheeler, and nimbly played by the orchestra, with elegant fortepiano continuo by Manon Fischer-Dieskau. You can never say too often how worthwhile (and affordable) these polished conservatoire productions are, with singers poised for big careers and talents to spot. In the next few weeks, catch the Royal College of Music (The Marriage of Figaro), the Royal Academy of Music (Semele) or the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester (Suor Angelica/Gianni Schicchi). Book early. They sell out.
One name on Guildhall’s roll of gold medallists is that of the Welsh soprano Natalya Romaniw, soon to make her debut in the role of Mimi in English National Opera’s La bohème. Last week she was an electrifying soloist in the world premiere of Testament by Mark-Anthony Turnage (b1960). Written for the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and its Ukrainian music director, Kirill Karabits, this 25-minute work explores themes of war and displacement via texts (sung in English) by three Ukraine-born poets who span the imperial, Soviet and modern eras: Taras Shevchenko (1814-61), a literary hero forced into exile; Vasyl Stus (1938-85), who died on hunger strike in a hard-labour camp; and Serhiy Zhadan (b1974), the cult voice of post-independence Ukraine today.
Turnage’s choices are strong and urgent. So is his music, at times stark and explosive, as at the start of “Weep, sky, weep”, yet lyrical too, with evocative, sombre low woodwind, piano, celesta, harp and bells. Turnage has a large catalogue of works. This shines out. The German premiere follows in Weimar on 9 December. The BSO and Karabits, expertly mastering an unfamiliar programme, also played music of other Ukrainians: Glière’s sumptuous Sirens and Prokofiev’s War and Peace Symphonic Suite. Their encore was Glière’s Russian Sailors’ Dance. The percussionist thrashed his tambourine with such thrilling jubilation in the closing bars I quite worried for him, or it.
In this month of memorial, the London Sinfonietta performed Olga Neuwirth’s music for the early pacifist film Maudite soit la guerre. Released in 1914, Alfred Machin’s silent movie is as much about betrayal as warfare, wrapped up in touching sentiment. Neuwirth reflects this in her scoring for nine instrumentalists and sampler, with snatches of whispered guitar, tolling bells and pub piano. Nostalgia’s arrows can probe deeply.
Star ratings (out of five)
Così fan tutte ★★★★
Testament ★★★★
Maudite soit la guerre ★★★