Cosi Fan Tutte, Festival Theatre

Published on Tuesday 23 June 2009 10:16

Cosi Fan Tutte ****, Festival Theatre

LOVE and faithfulness descend into lust and free love through the deceptions inflicted on two pairs of young lovers in this brilliant production of Mozart's comic opera, which does not, in the end, do what it says on the tin.

At least not under David McVicar's supremely confident and slightly wicked direction for Scottish Opera. He finds delicious fun and frivolity throughout – the music is superbly performed and it is only a marginally underpowered second half aria that mars what would otherwise be a perfect production.

Cosi fan tutte – or "That is the way of all women" is the cynical philosophy held by one Don Alfonso in late 19th century Naples.

The mentor of young officers Ferrando and Guglielmo, he is trying to convince them that their fiances, posh sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella, are inherently unfaithful. In a wager to prove his point, Don Alfonso convinces the lads to pretend to depart Naples for war, then return disguised as Albanian princes to try to seduce their own fiances.

Someone must have broken Peter Savidge's heart most horribly in the past, such is the cruelty in his creation of Don Alfonso. Throughout the opera he keeps on popping up, manipulating proceedings so that the youngsters' love will come crashing down.

He has a willing ally in the girls' maid Despina, sung with a brilliant sense of humour by Marie McLaughlin. She's quite happy to be bribed to bring a bit of vitality and amusement into her demanding mistresses' lives by pushing them together with the two rich princes Alfonso introduces.

McLaughlin milks her moments of comedy for all they are worth, bringing loads of business to the stage. This ensures that her character is full and rounded while giving depth to the story itself and ensuring that although it is pretty far-fetched, it is at least internally believable.

As the sisters, Violet Noorduyn and Caitlin Hulcup are quite the epitome of girlishness, flitting from one emotion to the next but doing so from the solid purity of their love for their betrothed – symbolised in an excellent piece of staging by two white stacks of rock in Naples bay, overlooked by the girls' holiday home.

As the lads, Ville Rusanen and Joel Prieto stomp around most effectively, generally letting their testosterone hang out and arrogantly confident of their loves' fidelity, even as they are being unfaithful in the manner of their testing it.

It is this final irony which McVicar brings out so clearly. Although the girls eventually succumb, it takes the combined forces of Alfonso, Despina and their own fiancs to bring them down. While the lads enjoy every moment of it.

Which is what is written on a subtly differing tin, the one saying "Cosi fan tutti" – "That is the way of the world".

Run ends Saturday