Mozart meets ‘Mad Men’ in new production of ‘Così Fan Tutte’

Mozart’s Così Fan Tutte sometimes seems like the relative you don’t want to meet at the family reunion. Sure, the opera’s distinguished siblings, The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, are invariably at the top of everyone’s guest list. But there’s always been something strangely disquieting about Così.

Vanderbilt Opera Theatre director Gayle Shay concedes that Così can be a dicey piece. “Mozart and his librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte were probably just trying to create a delightful diversion, but in truth it is a very difficult story,” Shay says. “The opera was once seen as very risqué, and though people don’t necessarily feel that way about it now, the work’s ending can be very hard for a contemporary audience to swallow.”

To make Così seem more palatable, Vanderbilt Opera Theatre will present an updated rendition of the piece this weekend at Ingram Hall. The story of two men who use a cruel ruse to test their fiancées’ fidelity was originally set in 18^th-century Naples. Vanderbilt’s version takes place in 1960s New York, at a time when the feminist movement was beginning to redefine society’s views about women.

Unlike the female characters in Mozart’s original setting, who return to their men after they’ve been duped, the women in Vanderbilt’s production get to make their own choices. “We told our girls that they can return to the men or not,” says Shay. “A lot of people are going to be surprised by the decisions they’ve made.”

This weekend’s production will feature Mozart’s score – performed by the Vanderbilt University Orchestra under the direction of Robin Fountain – and a clever English translation and updating of Da Ponte’s libretto.

In the original setting, two Neapolitan gentlemen, Ferrando and Guglielmo, egged on by their older friend Don Alfonso, engage in a little masquerade. They tell their fiancées – Fiordiligi and Dorabella – that they are leaving on a military expedition, but they immediately return in disguise as a pair of exotic and comic Albanians (they are the 18^th-century’s “Two Wild and Crazy Guys”).

Ferrando and Guglielmo bet Don Alfonso that their fiancées will remain faithful and will resist the lures of the seductive Albanians. All four lovers are in for a shock that will end their age of innocence.

Vanderbilt’s English version, written by Ruth and Thomas Martin, opens in a 1966 Manhattan Social Club. Ferrando and Guglielmo are junior executives who work for Don Alfonso, a senior executive who seems like a character right out of the television series Mad Men. The young executives pretend to leave for the Vietnam War, but they return disguised as hippies to seduce their socialite girlfriends Fiordiligi and Dorabella. In the second act, the four find themselves (where else?) in an Upstate New York, Woodstock-era hippie commune.

The production’s set will include a screen that displays vintage 1960s advertising. During Act 1 at the social club, the ads are from the early 1960s and all depict women as mothers and homemakers – the kind of image that Betty Friedan railed against in 1963’s The Feminine Mystique. In Act 2, the ads reflect more of a late 1960s liberated woman.

Mozart and Da Ponte described Così as a “dramma giocoso” or “jocund drama” – a comic opera. Over the years, stage directors have always struggled with whether to emphasize the dramatic or comic aspects of the work.

In his 1986 New York production, famed and controversial stage director Peter Sellars created a darker Così that was filled with delightful anachronisms – the performance featured period instruments but was set in a modern-day diner.

Vanderbilt’s staging will have its own anachronisms – the cocktail piano in the Manhattan Social Club will be an 18^th-century-style fortepiano. But as to the overall mood, Shay says Così should not remind the viewer of Richard Strauss’ darkly disturbing modern opera Salome.

“Così should really be lighthearted,” she says.

LIVE

What: Vanderbilt Opera Theatre presents Mozart’s Così Fan Tutte.

When: 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 11 and 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 13.

Where: Ingram Hall, 2400 Blakemore Ave.

Admission: Free.