Soprano Liisa Dávila

MEMORABLE MELODIES AT MENDO FESTIVAL'S COSI FAN TUTTE

Capping a gorgeous sunny day on the Northern California coastal cliffs, a full moon rose July 19 in a clear sky over the big Mendocino Music Festival tent. A concert presentation of Mozart’s comedy Così fan tutte (loosely translated as “All women are like that”) had just ended, and a happy audience exited, chattering praise and headed for further celebrations. Across the street, in the venerable 1878 Mendocino Hotel, an animated after-party of orchestra and company members was just getting underway.

Mozart excelled in writing for the theater, producing several comic operas that dominate not only the entire classical period of operatic composition, but his own catalog as well, giving birth to a new genre of opera featuring believable, relatable characters and stories. Three of these are Don Giovanni, Le nozze di Figaro, and Così fan tutte, which splashed onto the late 18th century opera stages like rambunctious cos-playing children. Hilarious plots involving intrigue, misunderstandings, disguise and mayhem, presented servants and their masters playing real or imagined conflicts against each other. Everything works out in the end and the characters all skip happily into the wings.

Così is perhaps the least famous of these three masterpieces, but not due to any lack of quality. The opera brims with memorable melodies and brilliant ensemble writing. But of the three, it is the smallest in scope—a true chamber opera, written for six characters, small chorus (cut for this performance), and there are no truly famous tunes to whistle. Instead, the greatness lies in the ensemble writing, of which there is a lot. Each character has a major aria (the sopranos each have two) and the rest of the time is spent in either in rapid-fire dialog with harpsichord accompaniment, or in lovely duets, trios, quartets or sextets. The cast is traditionally structured - two pairs of upper-class lovers, one older protagonist buffo-baritone and “the maid” who is by definition also a buffa character.

The plot is simple: two young men are engaged to two sisters. Their older man friend challenges them to a bet that their virtuous fiancées would indeed cheat on them given the opportunity. The boys hotly protest this suggestion and agree to test the girls’ fidelity by pretending to leave for military duty, then showing up in disguises and passionately wooing each other’s fiancée. If the girls stay true and reject their advances, they will win the bet. If the girls cave, then they lose. The rest of the opera plays out as expected.

Following initial protests, the girls do indeed eventually succumb to each other’s fiancé. At the end, the boys reveal the trick and forgive them, and the two couples are restored. I have seen the ending played with the twist of them remaining paired with each other’s fiancé, but here they remained true to the original ending. It’s a delightful farce and this semi-staged concert performance, even with no director credited, was thoroughly enjoyable.

A vocally strong cast of singers who can also perform a parlor comedy is the first requirement. The voices do not need to be gigantic dramatic instruments, but tonally attractive, well-projected without forcing, flexible and expressive. In this respect, all six singers in this performance were well-cast.

As the sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella, soprano Liisa Dávila and mezzo Megan Potter excelled in their arias, duets and ensemble interactions. Their voices blend beautifully, and they were in perfect sync musically and dramatically. Ms. Dávila’s soprano is light and rangy, like her music. Masterful flights of coloratura in the Act I aria “Come scoglio” (those perfect high-speed triplets!) were complemented by expressiveness and warm lower range in the Act II “Per pièta”, a highlight of the evening. Ms. Potter has a deep, rich mezzo-soprano that also moves very well. Her Act I aria “Smanie implacabili” had just the right amount of drama-queen gasping, written that way by Mozart, without sacrificing rhythmic precision or vocal beauty. Both were clad in elegant flower-patterned full skirts that moved well for the action.

Their fiancés Ferrando (Dorabella’s) and Guglielmo (Fiordiligi’s) were broadly well-played and sung by tenor Salvatore Atti and baritone Matthew Peterson. With most of the comedy resting on their shoulders, they gave their all as the hapless lovers. Their “Albanian” disguises, apparently inspired by the legendary “wild and crazy guys” of Saturday Night Live fame, landed perfectly. Mr. Atti sang “Un’ aura amorosa” and the rest of his role with impeccable legato phrasing, direct simplicity and silky, beautiful tone. Mr. Peterson, although sounding progressively indisposed as the evening wore on, gave a strong, funny and musically adept performance. His high-energy aria “Donne mie”, as well as his entire evening’s singing revealed a cavalier baritone voice of very attractive quality, and showed admirable professionalism and technique, regardless of how he may have been feeling vocally or otherwise.

The fiancés older friend Don Alfonso was played perfectly by bass-baritone Matthew Miksak. Here (as he did so wonderfully as Don Bartolo in last year’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia), he brought the crafty, cynical, experienced Don Alfonso to life through brilliant passages of rapid-fire recitative and flights of practiced lyricism. The most beautiful musical moment in the opera is the sustained trio he sings with the two sisters: “Soave sia il vento” (“may the breezes be gentle”) as they bid a floating farewell to the fiancés who are pretending to go off to war. His Act II arietta “Tutti accusan le donne” (“everyone accuses women…”) advises the miserable young men to accept their fickle fiancées as they are, otherwise they’ll end up bachelors, because (and here is the opera’s punchline): “Così fan tutte” (they are all like that)! Hmmm….

A sparkling jewel of the evening was the up-and-coming Bianca Orsi. Her crystal clear, beautifully placed lyric-coloratura soprano, coupled with a charming presence as she romped her way through the part of the girls’ wily maid Despina, was a vocal delight from start to finish. Both of her arias (“In uomini, in soldati” and “Una donna à quindici anni”) were crisply executed at the fastest tempo possible. I wondered throughout the evening what the reason was for taking everything so fast. Her funny voice as she assumed the disguise of a notary at the end of the opera was one of the best I’ve heard. Her normal singing bloomed with that sought after “chiaroscuro”, the vocal phenomenon of a sound being both bright and dark all at once, perfectly balanced.

This performance proceeded lickety-split from the opening downbeat to the final cadence. The opera’s conductor/harpsichordist Ryan Murray favors speed, and most of the time everyone on stage agreed. His double duty is truly remarkable. But because he and the orchestra were behind the singers, there were occasional rents in the sonic fabric. That said, the orchestra played excellently and really sounded like part of the action. The balance, both internal and with the singers, was uniformly good, despite the tent’s flat acoustics.

A major improvement in this year’s Festival was the addition of supertitles, and one could hear the difference it made for the audience. They thoroughly enjoyed themselves, getting all the jokes. This performance definitely put the “fest” in festival.