Houston Grand Opera Studio presents Mozart: Così fan tutte, March 11, 7:30 p.m. | March 13, 2 p.m.
Becker Theater at Emery-Weiner School, 9825 Stella Link Houston, TX 77025
Sung in Italian with English surtitles
How far will young lovers go to test each others’ loyalty? With its enchanting and witty score, Mozart’s Così fan tutte
asks this very question. In lieu of the annual Showcase, HGO Studio is
presenting this fully-staged opera accompanied by piano and harpsichord
at the state-of-the-art Becker Theater, whose small size and great
acoustics are perfectly suited to Mozart’s comic commentary on the
fragility of young love.
Synopsis
Guglielmo loves Fiordiligi, and Ferrando loves Dorabella, and the two
sisters are equally smitten with the handsome young suitors. Don
Alfonso challenges the boys to a wager that he can prove their lovers
fickle and easily swayed. The three men stage a military draft, and once
the boys are “off at war,” they return to the ladies disguised as
exotic men from abroad. Each woos the other’s betrothed—at first to no
avail. Once Don Alfonso enlists the help of the worldly wise Despina,
things take a turn in his favor.
Director's Note
The School for Lovers
Gregory B. Keller
Così fan tutte is an unusual beast in the canon of great
operas. Although penned by the expert team of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
and Lorenzo da Ponte, this masterpiece has always been a little thorny.
First there is the title, which is difficult to translate exactly in
English, but lands somewhere between: “That’s the way women are” and
“All women do that.” At first glance this appears to be a callous,
sexist generalization—the type of utterance that could either illicit
Cro-Magnon laughter in the men’s locker room, or could get you slapped
across the face in mixed company. In this prickly title, Da Ponte has
already slyly handed us a ticking time bomb, just waiting to explode.
For this inflammatory statement immediately cleaves the world—both
onstage and in the audience—into its two most basic tribes of men and
women, and ruthlessly pits them against each other. All of this has
subtly happened even before the audience has sat down in their seats, or
heard a note of Mozart’s sublime music.
Then there is the subtitle of the opera, La scuola degli amanti,
or “The School for Lovers,” which is just as notable because instead of
being gender-exclusive, it is clearly gender-inclusive. The story
begins with a late night (or rather early morning) drunken boast by the
men (or rather the boys) that their girlfriends would remain faithful to
them under any circumstances. Don Alfonso, the older, wiser and more
experienced nobleman, suggests that women are made of the same stuff as
men, and therefore subject to the same whims of desire. A bet is made,
and Alfonso spends the rest of the opera giving the boys a rather brutal
education about human nature, fidelity, and ultimately the hardest
lesson of all, forgiveness.
The girls also receive tutelage, but instead of coming from above, it
comes from below. Their spirited and spunky maid, Despina, provides
similar lessons in the nature of the human heart, but these are lessons
learned from the street, not the university. Despina and Don Alfonso
form a wonderful and unusual pair of teachers—a sort of yin and yang of
elegance and earthiness, wittiness and trashiness, cool academia and
tough street smarts. They combine forces to educate their respective
wards—but staying true to form, they end up deceiving each other in the
process. Unlike many, they practice what they preach.
These are the hard lessons of the heart that every one of us must
experience as we go from boys to men, and girls to women. When this
opera is sung by 30 or 40 year-olds it can still be effective, but it is
really a different experience for the audience. When performed by young
singers, there is something very precious and endearing—and yes, even
funny—about watching actual youngsters learn about love.
I am especially excited about working with the Houston Grand Opera
Studio Artists on this project, not only because they are an
exceptionally talented group of singers, but also because we will be
watching real people learn real lessons about growing up. I suspect the
story will ring especially true with the audience, and will resonate
even more deeply within our hearts. And maybe, just maybe, these
youngsters can teach us something about love, so that when we leave the
theater with our respective mates, we might look at them with a little
more understanding and compassion.
Gregory B. Keller is an
opera and theater director and frequent guest faculty member of the
Houston Grand Opera Studio, where he directs Mozart’s Così fan tutte
this spring. A native of Los Angeles, his most recent credits include
directing a new production of Rossini’s Il turco in italia for Wolf Trap
Opera.
