✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we send newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Support Us Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Shopping
  • CW SHOPS
  • Support Us
  • Get Started
  • Tickets
  • CW SHOPS
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
Opera

Così Fan Tutte, English National Opera review ★★★★★

14 Mar 22 – 22 Mar 22, Five performances including one matinee, start times vary. Running time c 3hr 15min including one interval

A joyful switchback ride through a great Mozart opera is a visual as well as a vocal treat

By Claudia Pritchard on 15/3/2022

1 CW reader is interested
Hanna Hipp and Benson Wilson feel the love in ENO's Così Fan Tutte. Photo: Lloyd Winters
Hanna Hipp and Benson Wilson feel the love in ENO's Così Fan Tutte. Photo: Lloyd Winters
Così Fan Tutte, English National Opera review 4 Così Fan Tutte, English National Opera review Joseph Funnell
Why don't they notice? That's the question running under the music throughout Mozart's comic opera Così Fan Tutte. When two young men take a bet that their fiancées will stay faithful to them, they pretend to go to war and sneak back in disguise, each wooing each other's sweetheart.


Why don't the young women notice that their new suitors bear a very strong resemblance to each other's betrothed? They wouldn't fool us... But this is the mountain that every director of Così must climb, albeit with the help of several Shakespearean plots as crampons.


The solution for Phelim McDermott and his physical theatre company, at English National Opera, in a sugar-rush revival of 2014 production, is to stage the whole affair in the fantastical world of a 1950s Coney Island-style funfair, where nothing is as it seems and a big wheel turns in the background. It mirrors the circular plot, as artists of all shapes and sizes trick and tumble in a tireless display of acrobatics.


‘Lies. Love. Chocolate. Poison’ promise the artists on cards at the start of this vaudevillian parade of circus skills, popping up out of a magic chest. Even before the overture has ended, we know we are in for a thoroughly good time.



Soprano Nardus Williams (right) wards off unwanted attentions. Photo: Lloyd Winters


And so it proves, with the well-matched Ferrando and Guglielmo swopping their naval officers' uniforms for jeans and rhinestones. Two Samoan singers inhabit these roles –graceful tenor Amitai Pati making his British debut and the rich-voiced baritone Benson Wilson. Both are mischievous and defiant when challenged by misogynist Don Alfonso.


Bass-baritone Neal Davies is wonderfully entertaining in this not always attractive role, larging it in a mustard Zoot, and much aided by soprano Soraya Mafi as multi-talented Despina, laughter bubbling through her nimble voice. Here Despina is a chambermaid at the Skyline Motel, and Mafi does a marvellous turn as a line-dancing sheriff presiding over an on-the-spot wedding. Jeremy Sams's wonderfully witty free translation is a welcome guest.


As Fiordiligi, soprano Nardus Williams sails through Mozart’s notoriously difficult arias with elegance and exceptional musicality, the lustrous sheen of her voice showing her to be a truly great Mozartian. She demonstrated this too in her Countess in The Marriage of Figaro at Opera Holland Park last summer. McDermott expects high-wire acts from his singers too: Williams's demanding first aria is sung as she sprints in and out of doorways like the fastest of farceuses, her second while flying high above the stage in the gondola of the big wheel.


Mezzo-soprano Hanna Hipp is often seen in a trouser role: she was very dashing as the young male lover in Garsington Opera’s production of Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, Culture Whisper’s favourite production of 2021. So it is a treat to see Hipp in full Dirty Dancing mode in the flouncy gown (costume Laura Hopkins) that rapidly replaces the prim pullover, bobby socks and pencil skirt of her first romance.



Improbable's carousel. Photo: Lloyd Winters


The 12 artists of Improbable make the wheels turn, literally in the case of the fairground rides, magically pirouetting giant cups and saucers and undulating carousel animals on Tom Pye's candy-coloured set.


In the pit there are a few thrills and spills, and at times the ride runs a little slowly under conductor Kerem Hasan, making his ENO debut. Bet he was happy with his chorus, here in their element, characterful and at the heart of the action as US Marines, hucksters and fun-seekers.


This is Phelim McDermott's second pick-me-up at ENO this seaon, which opened with his spellbinding production of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha.


The morning after first night, my daily paper suggested 50 cheering-up social media feeds.Here’s my tip: put your phone down and go to Così Fan Tutte instead. We all love a sneezing cat, but this music and spectacle will be in your head for ever.


Così Fan Tutte is sung in English with English surtitles. It is a joint production with the Metropolitan Opera, New York. Further performances are on 16, 18, 20 and 22 March. Click here to book
by Claudia Pritchard

What Così Fan Tutte, English National Opera review
Where English National Opera, London Coliseum, St Martin's Lane, London, WC2N 4ES | MAP
Nearest tube Embankment (underground)
When 14 Mar 22 – 22 Mar 22, Five performances including one matinee, start times vary. Running time c 3hr 15min including one interval
Price £10-£160
Website Click here for more information and booking



Most popular

Things to do in London this weekend: 24–26 March. Photo: The Parakeet, Kentish Town
Things to do in London this weekend: 24–26 March
Irene Maiorino and Alba Rohrwacher in My Brilliant Friend season 4, HBO/Sky Atlantic (Photo: HBO)
My Brilliant Friend, season 4, Sky Atlantic: first-look photo, release date, plot, cast
Best art exhibitions in London. Photo: Thin Air at the Beams
Top exhibitions on now in London

Editor's Picks

Akhnaten returns to English National Opera. Photo: Richard Hubert Smith
Best concerts and opera in March
Mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey sings Offred in The Handmaid's Tale. Photo: Rosetta Greek
The Handmaid's Tale, English National Opera
New vocal ensemble Vox Urbane and young friends make their debut in April. Photo: Louie Carrigan
Best concerts and opera in April and for Easter
Allan Clayton in the title role of Peter Grimes recalls a death at sea. Photo: Yasumo Kageyama
Peter Grimes, Royal Opera House review
Garsington Opera-goers enjoy a magical evening
Garsington Opera 2022
2Cellos play their farewell to London in June
2Cellos farewell, OVO Arena Wembley

A little more...

  • Listen...

    "Soave sia il vento" from Così fan tutte, recorded at Glyndebourne in 2006.

Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).

We recommend nearby

  • Coco Ichibanya

    The first European branch of Japan's biggest curry house chain dishes out Japanese curries with adventurous toppings and plenty of options to customise your meal.

    Read more...
    Book Map
  • Frenchie

    Restaurant and wine bar Frenchie has been credited with redesigning the Parisian way of eating. Its simple, generous yet precise dishes are heavily influenced by chef cum owner Gregory Marchand's classical training in Nantes.

    Read more...
    Book Map
  • Terroirs

    The sort of wine bar/restaurant you never want to leave, this place has two separate floors depending on whether you fancy something bustling or more chilled. The French menu features both small plates and charcuterie alongside plats du jour that might include gilt head bream, monk’s beard, broad beans and rouille.

    Book Map
1

English National Opera

Mozart

Phelim McDermott

Nardus Williams



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • Support Us
  • Tickets
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×