Così fan tutte
English National Opera
After many productions of Mozart’s bleak comedy Così fan tutte, there has been a hiatus, welcomely brought to an end by ENO, which brought the first operatic production of the great Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami from Aix-en-Provence. Denied a visa by the imbecilic British embassy in Tehran, he had his work restaged by Elaine Tyler-Hall. I have no idea what it was like originally, but it is hard to believe that it was quite as blank as what we saw at the Coliseum, which really was not a production at all, but merely costumed characters strutting around in the way they would if there was no one to tell them what to do.
The staging, however, was a treat to look at. With extremely clever use of film, we had a three-dimensional scene of sea, cliffs, and an approaching boat, and later of the orchestra and the conductor, placed behind the singers.
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