Organization

Festiwal Mozartowski w Warszawie

Stage director

Marek Weiss

Set designer

Hanna Szymczak

Costume designer

Conductor

Vladimir Kiradjiev

Singer

Soprano

Anna Mikołajczyk

Fiordiligi

Mezzo-soprano

Elzbieta Wroblewska

Dorabella

Sylwia Krzysiek

Despina

Tenor

Aleksander Kunach

Ferrando

Baritone

Tomasz Rak

Guglielmo

Bass

Łukasz Klimczak

Don Alfonso

Pianist

Marta Kostrych

Warszawska Opera Kameralna

Others

Vocal Ensemble of the Warsaw Chamber Opera

Orchestra

Musicae Antiquae Collegium Varsoviense

Così fan tutte

Warsaw

Poland

Così fan tutte Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Public

Private

Approved

“The work is considered a comedy with an incredible plot, in which two young men dress up as exotic admirers and seduce their unaware fiancés. The goal is to test their fidelity and win a bet with a love affair veteran claiming that there are no faithful women and all end up cheating on their partners. For some fans of Mozart, however, this is the most complex and bitter masterpiece in which divine music covers in a beautiful form the terrible truth about human helplessness in the face of the contradiction between the temptation of sex and the idea of love. I share this point of view and in my production I show how deeply Mozart with Da Ponte reaches in their critique of the hypocrisy and meanness that the women are perpetrated by the male world.

The perfidy of their idea does not lie in dressing up, but in changing partners at the same time. It means that each gentleman deliberately and with impunity seduces his friend’s fiancée. I assumed there was no chance they wouldn’t be recognized. So the whole game is played consciously. Initially, women resist having fun. One resists shorter and the other longer, in line with their sexual temperament. The game leads both sisters to believe that the switch is in line with their true inclinations. So the initial determination of “who with whom” turned out to be wrong. Now it has become clear who should spend their lives with whom. But suddenly the game is over and the men want to go back to the official version.

They hold a grudge against the women, although they are the ones who initiated the game and participated in it with no qualms. In my opinion, they are mean and their title statement that “all women do it” is presumptuous. In order to get this sense out of the fun convention, we made some interpretations in our staging. I believe that they do not violate the intentions of the opera’s creators, but bring them closer to viewers brought up in a different morality and familiar with many bitter truths about human inclinations, which in the Mozart era could not be the subject of public consideration. My performance is against libertines and lotharios who dress their corruption and contempt for women in philosophical theses and wisdoms that are supposed to testify the experience, and in fact are the result of increasing impotence and a sense of rejection. It is they who spoil young people longing for pure love.

They are the ones who manipulate values in the world of art and reflection on human being, taking away our hope for a positive dimension of human feelings. They are the ones who make sex a false religion and the ultimate truth that cannot be appealed. They argue that having fun is the highest good in life, and the seriousness of love is ridiculous and pathetic […] – scoundrels proclaiming their pathetic truth about women, whom they treat as objects deprived of individuality and dignity. Unfortunately, sometimes I feel like one of them. So this performance is also my repentance and a form of apology for my lowdown thoughts and deeds. Someone might say that the opera house is not a place for personal settlements. But opera is a theatre, and this is already a place where personal confessions are the foundation.”

English

Così fan tutte by Mozart, From (2023/2023), Directed by Marek Weiss,, Conductor Vladimir Kiradjiev, Warszawska Opera Kameralna, Warsaw, Poland

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Crew

Ensemble

Co-Producer

Program, About & Synopsis

Photos

Further reading

Performance Dates & Venues

Venues