English National Opera

Così fan tutte – ‘women are all, and always, so’ – is Mozart and Da Ponte’s final comic masterpiece. Two young men are persuaded by a friend to test the virtue of their fiancées by means of a cruel deceit: they disguise themselves and then each attempts to seduce the others’ girlfriend. When the women succumb, virtue is crossed – perhaps even double-crossed. Love, lust and desire are played out in a world in which the boundaries between what is real and what is make-believe are blurred. Against the erotic pulse of Mozart’s sublime music, the characters act out a game of love which entangles them far more deeply than they could have thought, or perhaps would be willing to admit. Once the deceit is unmasked, can their lives really go on as before?

Improbable’s inspirational Phelim McDermott returns to direct Mozart’s classic six-hander following the recent triumphs of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha and The Perfect American at the London Coliseum. Ryan Wigglesworth, award-winning ENO Composer in Residence, conducts a strong cast led by ENO Harewood Artist Kate Valentine and internationally renowned mezzo Christine Rice as the duped fiancées, while outstanding baritone Roderick Williams (Medea, Sunken Garden) plays the cynical Don Alfonso, who sets the deception in motion.