L.A. Opera’s 'Così' Is a Delightful Italian Screwball Rom-Com

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By Truman C. Wang
3/10/2025

Photo credit: Cory Weaver

This new-to-L.A. production of Mozart’s romantic comedy satire Così fan tutte is at once serious, moving, and entertaining.  It is also thought-provoking.  During the closing scene, the two sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella reconcile to their original loves, then catch one another’s eyes, and cooly switch partners for the final exchanges.  The men react hardly at all.  The effect is casual and cynical, and it is unprepared for.  The message seems to be, “What does it matter who matches with whom?”  Mozart’s music has been telling us that such things matter very much.  

Michael Cavanagh (1961-2024), the late director, obviously worked from the full score, devising actions and movements matching the timing, rhythms and phrases in the singing and orchestra (Wagner’s “deeds of music made visible” comes to mind.)  Cavanagh updated the actions to late 1930’s, just before America’s entry into WWII.  It was a period of political and emotional turbulences for the nation – mirroring the crossroads faced by our protagonists in this Mozart-Da Ponte comedy.  The four lovers may appear more like marionettes than human beings, but Mozart’s music gives them life in a radiant sequence of arias, duets and ensembles scored for up to six voices and orchestra, each movement is a developing music drama and employing different forces. 

Shawna Lucey recreated the staging for L.A. and added a screwball element to the original rom-com, great for laughs but not always conducive to the music. The sisters’ acting is deliberately campy; Dorabella sings her “Love is a thief and a serpent” aria in a daring Carmen-like pose.  Act II garden serenade becomes a slapstick pool party, its beguiling melodic strains rudely punctured by audience laughter.  The moving wedding song in the opera’s finale, “In your glass and mine/ E nel tuo, nel mio bicchiero”, where the focus should be on the genuinely love-stricken sisters, is drowned out by onstage funny business.  Erhard Rom and Constance Hoffman created the handsome décor and costumes, respectively, of a posh country club in Virginia. 

This Così cast has the light, unforced quality ideal for the opera’s many ensembles.  Rod Gilfry, the Alfonso, reprised his 2023 Dallas role with a polished and witty performance.  Anna Maria Martinez, the Despina, was witty, sparkling and, in her two arias, showing genuine outrage at male behavior and how women learn to deal with it.  She was also delightful in her ‘Dr. Mesmer’ and notary disguises.  The Dorabella, Rihab Chaieb (a Carmen in ’24 Glydenbourne), was wonderful.  She was impulsive, spontaneous young woman quick to respond to every turn of events.  Erica Petrocelli moved bravely through the challenging role of Fiordiligi, making lovely high notes, runs and roulades in her two big arias (“Come scoglio”, “Per pieta”), without the low notes to plumb their emotional depths.  Anthony León’s singing as Ferrando was fluent and well shaped; Justin Austin was a stylish and ardent Guglielmo, who got to sing the longer, more showy aria “Rivolgete a lui Io sguardo" in lieu of the often-heard “Non siate nitros”. 

James Conlon’s conducting was lively and graceful in the musical numbers and witty in the recitatives.  His affection for Mozart is evident.  His singers and musicians were allowed plenty of time and space to shape their phrases, to sound the marvels of Mozart’s enchanting score.  The opera, at over three hours long, is presented with two standard cuts (Act I duet “Ah fato dan legge”, Ferrando’s Act II “Io veggio quell’anima”) and “Rivolgete” replacing Guglielmo’s “Non siate nitros” in Act I. 

The supertitle’s English translation is prosaic rather than literal or faithful to Da Ponte’s words. Dorabella and Fiordiligi sing “I will take the shorter one…and I will take the taller one”, instead of “I will take the dark one…and I will take the blonde one.”   Also removed from the translation are most of the Greek mythology references that Da Ponte culled from Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. (Venus, Mars, Vulcan, Artemis, Hydra, Charon, Jove all fail to make their cameos, save for Narcissus.)

Seven more performances of Così fan tutte on March 8, 16, 19, 22, 27, 30
Tickets and info on: https://laopera.org/performances/2025/cosi-fan-tutte

Truman C. Wang is Editor-in-Chief of Classical Voice, whose articles have appeared in the Pasadena Star-News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, other Southern California publications, as well as the Hawaiian Chinese Daily. He studied Integrative Biology and Music at U.C. Berkeley.