Customer Reviews

Mozart - Cosi Fan Tutte / Harnoncourt, Bartoli, Nikiteanu, Zurich Opera

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Mozart's <Cosi fan tutte> has had a spotted career on video, but I believe that the ArtHaus edition (100 013) is the best of the lot if considered in the light of Opera as Theatre. For once, the dry recites are done with imagination, using something never heard in opera houses: silence. The scene in which the two sisters and their disguised wooers are seated awkwardly at a table and one of them breaks the ice with "Nice day, isn't it?" gets a bigger laugh than all the silliness in other productions.

We have here the moralistic tale of two young men, Ferrando (Roberto Sacca) and Guilelmo (Oliver Widmer), betting the older and cynical Don Alfonso (Carlos Chausson) that their lovers, Fiordiligi (Cecilia Bartoli) and Dorabella (Liliana Nikiteanu), are constant. With the aid of the clever maid Despina (Agnes Baltsa), each woos the other's beloved--and both succeed! All around, some unpleasant truths are learned about themselves and only Don Alfonso emerges unscathed.

Since the subtitle of this work is "The School for Lovers," we have in this production Don Alfonso actually running a classroom for young men; and several scenes take place in front of the blackboard, which is a prop put to very good use throughout. Never mind that the disguises on the men would fool no one and that at least two pieces on the stage are anachronistically modern. The acting is good, with Bartoli overdoing the facial expressions a little as usual, and the singing of some of the six participants perhaps less than spectacular but always within character. I am recommending this highly as an excellent piece of Theatre and a very good introduction to an opera that lives in the shadow of "Figaro" and "Don Giovanni."

The work is on two DVDs in the 16:9 screen ratio. The jacket lists a running time of 275 minutes, which includes a 22-minute "Behind the Scenes" featurette. No libretto but a good synopsis.

Mozart's Così fan tutte contains some of his sweetest and most beautiful melodies. Such gorgeous music combined with an excellent libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte make it hard to believe that this opera was largely neglected by the public until the twentieth century. Viewing this DVD is a true delight from beginning to end, as Harnoncourt conducts Mozart's gem just right. The cast is outstanding, made up of a mixture of world-famous singers like Bartoli and Baltsa and others that, while not as well known, bring their characters to life. Even the recitatives are expertly done, thus adding to the humor and the drama of the opera. This production brilliantly conveys the humor on the surface, while at the same time illustrating that just below is a darker world with real tears and pathos as the four lovers discover that true love isn't necessarily forever. The sound and picture quality are excellent, and no fan of Mozart will want to be without this superb DVD. I know this opera well, and this production was enlightening to me on a musical, intellectual, and emotional level that stayed with me long after viewing it.

This has to be one of the best Cosi stagings I have seen by far.

The two soldiers are accurately represented by Roberto Sacca as Ferrando and Oliver Widmer as Guglielmo. Both men were animated and completely in character for the entire production, which, given the length of Cosi, could be quite hard for singers who find the dramatic aspect of opera a difficulty.

Carlos Chausson is a PERFECT Don Alfonso; calm, collected and cemented in his belief that the two women will, in fact, betray their beloveds just as he has predicted. I especially love the way he non-chalantly strolls about the stage, often puffing on a huge stogie.

As Despina, we have the lovely and very talented Greek Mezzo, Agnes Baltsa. Not only does she give a good theatrical performance, but she has a beautiful voice.

Liliana Nikiteanu does a wonderful job as Dorabella, the younger sister, acting just as a young girl would: curious and playful. I'm anxious to see more of Ms. Nikiteanu in future productions, for this is truly the development of a fine performer.

Cecilia Bartoli's Fiordiligi is a joy to listen to, although not always a joy to watch. While I can always, always believe that Bartoli's emotions are correct within her work, I cannot always believe that she has to make those God-awful faces every time she sings. I have seen several productions from the Barber of Seville to Cenerentola that feature Bartoli, and it seems that her distorted faces only seem to get worse with the older and more experienced she gets.

Certainly, she is a very talented artist and performer, but it makes me wonder if those faces are not a way to manufacture a bigger sound on her part. If one were to compare this performance with the 1988 Barber of Seville performance, notes would be made that while the saucy spirit of the world's most loved Italian Diva is still there, the ugly and horrid faces and jaw positions are not.

But..she sells the songs, and that's what matters. I'm just curious to see if those wretched face positions cause any vocal tension a few years down the road...

Bottom line: Get a copy of this while you can; it certainly is worth it.

I did not think it would be possible to be disappointed in an opera which starred the superb Cecilia Bartoli in the role of Fiordiligi, but so it was. I felt that much of the direction here was off-kilter, and the staging somehow failed to convey that this is not a big dramatic opera. Yes, there are intended to be very moving moments, but in essence Così fan tutte is intended to be a comic opera.

Somehow the directing didn't portray this. And as good as Cecilia Bartoli was in singing this role, I felt she was forced into too serious a mould as Fiordiligi.

This performance has one of the worst Dorabellas I've ever seen. I literally had to stop this DVD about a third of the way through because I could not tolerate Liliana Nikiteanu's incessant over-acting any more. The panting, the grimaces, the melodrama without grace... it lacked the bite and subtlety of the really good Dorabellas. I kept thinking how wonderful Bartoli herself would be in this plum of a role. And Nikiteanu simply hasn't the voice to cope. What a dreadful shame - it really was Ms Nikiteanu who made much of this opera DVD intolerable.

Agnes Baltsa is mostly delightful as Despina, except when close-ups show that she is perhaps not quite young enough to portray this sort of role. Had the camera-work been cleverer, this would not have been a problem.

The men... well, they were quite reasonable, but not outstanding.

The trouble is this: no one else in the cast comes close to Bartoli's vocal prowess, except for Baltsa. This simply makes the performance seem very lopsided. Add to this a very silly cast choice for the Dorabella (a PIVOTAL role!) and a director who has clearly gone in for gloom and doom, and this performance simply does not work on several levels.

I would recommend in preference to this DVD the utterly beautiful version with Gruberova, or the Gardiner version with Roocroft etc. Both of these are charming, delightful, delicious and wonderfully sung.

Aaah...DVD for opera is a fantastic medium since it offers action besides music. And here Harnoncourt is at his best here, offers a rendition really complete, musically and theatrically. Recitatives fresh and interesting for once, here we get the whole picture with all the colours of Mozart`s paint-box. A laugh and a cry at the same time, this performance offers a picture of LIFE, with basically normal people with the same drams, hopes, envies and jealousies that we all have. The result is confrontational, but, then again, isn`t Harncourt allways.... Nikiteanu/Bartoli superb, Widmer excellent. A must for opera lovers.

There is a serious side to Cosi Fan Tutte (after all, the guys play a pretty nasty trick on their fiances), but this production is too solemn and dark, detracting from Mozart's music, some of which is wonderfully comic and much of which is sweet and heavenly. The slow tempo adds to the somber mood. The players seem to be either angry or gloomy most of the time, even the comic character of the maid, Despina.

And then in one of the few scenes that shouldn't be comic, Ferrando and Guglielmo inexplicably engage in silly stage business with their teacups and silverware while Ferrando sings one of Mozart's most beautiful and tender arias, "Un' aura amorosa." The production is saved by the powerful voice of Cecilia Bartoli as Fiordiligi and I do appreciate the director's choice to present us with a (literally) chilling final chorus that highlights the characters' disillusionment. If you're looking to buy a DVD of Cosi, I recommend the Theatre du Chatelet production from 1992, John Eliot Gardiner conducting.

I didn't like this version of Cosi Fan Tutte. I love Cecilia Bartoli, but I felt her voice didn't go together well with Nikiteanu's. Maybe it's because they are both mezzo sopranos, I don't know. Also, I didn't think Widmer and Sacca sang their parts well. Agnes Baltsa was excellent as Despina. I think Carlos Chausson did ok for his part, but I had a hard time getting past those devilish eyebrows. It was just weird to me how the Zurich opera house changed the story around. They made Don Alfonso a much darker character and the whole setting (a school) and the weird staging and everything just totally did not work for me. I had a very hard time getting into this production. Thankgoodness I got it from the library first. If you are looking for an excellent Cosi, I suggest the Gardiner version with Amanda Roocroft, Rose Mannion, Rodney Gilfry and Rainer Trost. It is the most beautiful Cosi I know of today.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the greatest composer of all time. Among his 626 extraordinary compositions his operas and piano concerti stand out as his best work, and are also the key to understand Mozart's musical language. Among his operas the three da Ponte operas stand out as the best ever written. All three are about Mozart's favorite subject, also the favorite subject of every great artist, and everyone with a heart: love. Among the three great Mozart - Da Ponte collaborations, Cosi Fan Tutte is the funniest, most extraordinary Opera. It is an ensemble Opera -- there are few solo arias. Instead we have a succession of duets, trios, quartets, quintets, sextets, and each is in itself an extraordinary masterpiece.

Mozart is unique among all great Opera composers in one particular Mozartian aspect: He is able to weave into a harmonious whole any combination of completely disparate emotions, each perfectly expressed in the music. One character may feel joy, while another may feel angry, another about to burst into laughter, another anguished, it does not matter -- Mozart will put all of them in the same piece of music, and all of them will be expressed in the music perfectly. This extraordinary ability to put into music every human emotion and combine it into one harmonious whole is unique to Mozart. No one ever came even close to be able to do the same.

Harnoncourt's reading with a cast of superb singer-actors of Cosi Fan Tutte is thoroughly enjoyable. There are other available versions of this magnificent Opera, some arguably even better. Yet if you love music and love Mozart, I think that you will not be disappointed in this particular reading. The acting and staging is excellent. The singing and playing first rate. The tempos -- well it is Harnoncourt! A little idiosynchratic, but it works. More on this later.

Whenever I rate a Cosi Fan Tutte I always go to the two most beautiful pieces of music in the whole Opera repertoire. The wonderful magical Quintet, "Mi Scriva Ogni Giorno" (Write to me every day) followed a few minutes later by the extraordinary Trio "Soave sia il vento" (Let the winds be gentle).

The quintet happens dramatically after the men bet with Don Alfonso on the outcome of a test of the women's constancy, promising to follow his directions for one day. Don Alfonso brings the terrible (fake) news, that the king ordered the men into battle and they must leave immediately to the women. The Quintet is the goodbye of the four lovers combined with interjections of Don Alfonso that he will burst into laughter if this goes on any longer. It is an example of what I wrote above of Mozart combining perfectly disparate emotions into a harmonious whole. Harnoncourt takes this a little bit too slow - I think that it would be even more beautiful, and would work dramatically better, if his tempo was a little faster. But Mozart's music works no matter what tempo, and in fact the acting is so good that it works dramatically as well.

This little piece of music is so extraordinary that it is worth taking it apart second by second. Fiordiligi starts while loving caresses are expressed in the violins with magical pizzicato accompaniment and chords. She sings: Write me every day ... twice if you can, but she sings it haltingly, syllable by syllable, because she is meant to be unable to sing it normally, she is supposed to be crying. Her lover answers the same way, Don't doubt it... Then she sings in a most extraordinary musical line: Be constant to me alone... to which Dorabella adds : Be faithful... to which the men sing in sequence Addio (Goodbye) Addio (Goodbye) to which the women respond in an inverted melody A... ddiio, signifying a stab in the heart, it's all just magical, breathtakingly beautiful music, expressing the loving sentiments of the departing lovers. It could be said that the men of course know that this is all fake, but Mozart tells us in the music that they are caught up in the moment, for their emotions are of genuine love, just like the women's. But Don Alfonso, on the other hand, observes all of this, and finds it irresistibly funny. He too knows that it is fake, so he sings "Io creppo si non rido" (I will burst if I don't laugh). Cresson's acting while he sings the line is superb.

A few minutes later the men have embarked and the three (Don Alfonso, Fiordiligi and Dorabella) wish them good journey in another extraordinarily beautiful pieca of music: Soave sia il vento. The words are almost banal: Let the winds be gentle, let the waves be tranquil, and let all elements cooperate for a safe journey, that is our desire. But what an extraordinary piece of music Mozart makes out of it! As always, the orchestra paints the big picture and sets the moood: The waves are expressed in the violins the singing starts magical, almost like a prayer. The lines succeed each other in heavenly music of infinite beauty, until we come to "desir..." (desire). When this word is reached, Mozart adds a marvelously beautiful dissonant chord, which expresses a tugging on the heart -- expressing perhaps the pain of separation, and perhaps simultaneously also sexual desire -- which is then resolved in release of tension.

Harnoncourt's tempo is now a bit too fast -- the waves in the violins seem rushed rather than tranquil -- but once again the music is so extraordinarily beautiful that it works at any tempo.

The rest of the opera follows more or less the same patterns. As I said, this may not be the very best available version of Cosi Fan Tutte, clearly that is also a matter of preference and taste, but it is thoroughly enjoyable, and therefore I recommend it.

To hear Cecilia Bartoli sing "Come scoglio" and "Per pieta, ben mio, perdona" was a sufficient reason for me to purchase this DVD. She was truly outstanding.

Although this title is less wellknown than Mozart's La Nozze de Figaro and Don Giovanni, it is not less melodious and beautiful than the other two operas.
The beauty of the music is emphasized by excellent performance of the singers, especially Cecilia Bartoli with her soft soprano voice as the firm Fiordiligi, the matter of fact and simple maid Despina, performed by Agnes Baltsa with her clear soprano voice and also the clear light tenor voice of Roberto Sacca. The others also contributed much to the performance which made the music so beautiful and enjoyable to watch and listen.
Like all Mozart's music we are enchanted to the really melodious nuance and the excellent singing add to the beauty of it.
We love the divine duets of two sopranos, tenor and baritone which were so harmoniously sang to reflect the magnificent music of Mozart.
One small flaw is only the background scenery which was a bit too constant and simple although it changes now and then.
Nevertheless this performance is really enchanting and made us want to watch and listen until the end.