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L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O
Opera thrills us to our depths not simply through great music and great theater, but through the brilliance with which those
elements reveal the truth of human emotion. The greatest opera composers aren’t simply peerless musicians – they’re also brilliant
psychologists who bring us the hearts and souls of their characters with unique, astounding insight. In the entire history of opera, no
composer merits this description more than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, especially in his
Così fan tutte.
A great
Così
performance gives an audience satisfaction of a very rare kind, since
the challenges are so overwhelming. The piece requires, first of all, true singing actors
– an ensemble of six star performers, all of them superbly accomplished musically
and vocally. Mozart has given them many opportunities to make their presence felt
in solo passages (for example, there’s nothing more moving in the Mozart operas
than Ferrando’s love song in Act One or Fiordiligi’s private examination of her
feelings in Act Two). Thanks to Mozart and his librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, each
of these six individuals onstage undertakes an emotional journey in the course of
the opera, in which each of the five other characters plays a significant role. These
are all intensely human figures, very specifically defined: dignified Fiordiligi and
flighty Dorabella, lovestruck Ferrando and exuberant Guglielmo, earthy Despina and
world-weary Don Alfonso. The miracle of the opera is the musically and dramatically
enthralling interplay among them.
The great question applied to any
Così
production is how the director chooses
to treat the ending: will the young women return to their fiancés, or will they go
off with their new partners? The answer to that question is something I always look
forward to, and of course, I won’t reveal here the direction we’ll take for this finale
at Lyric! The suspense will make that moment all the more rewarding for everyone in
the audience.
Fiordiligi in
Così
, one of Mozart’s most exacting soprano roles, has been
closely associated with Lyric favorite Ana María Martínez throughout her career,
and I’m thrilled that she can now bring this much-acclaimed portrayal to Lyric.
I anticipate a captivating stage partnership between Ana María and Marianne
Crebassa (Dorabella), who so delighted Lyric audiences in
Romeo and Juliet
two seasons ago. The same can be said of the dashing
pair portraying their fiancés, Joshua Hopkins (Guglielmo) and Andrew Stenson (Ferrando), and of the opera’s two schemers: Elena
Tsallagova (Despina) in her Lyric debut and Alessandro Corbelli (Don Alfonso), whose mastery of comic repertoire we’ve been
privileged to witness frequently at Lyric over the past three decades.
It’s always a joy for us to introduce an outstanding young American conductor to Lyric audiences. James Gaffigan, still less than
a decade into his international career and already praised for his Mozart at Glyndebourne and the Vienna State Opera, is making an
indelible impression with other major opera companies and orchestras worldwide. At Lyric he’s collaborating with the gifted Bruno
Ravella, who is reviving John Cox's marvelous production. John’s extraordinarily perceptive response to both the humor and the sheer
humanity of the Mozart/da Ponte operas has produced innumerable glorious performances of this repertoire at every leading house
internationally, including our previous
Così
revival in 2006/07.
Refresh your spirits and enrich your hearts with
Così fan tutte
, one of the true masterpieces of opera.
From the General Director
STEVE LEONARD
Anthony Freud
General Director, President & CEO
The Women’s Board Endowed Chair
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February 17 - March 16, 2018