Going beyond the pale...
Nudity and blacked-up cast turn Cosi fan tutte into a real shock opera
WELL, it’s not as if we didn’t know it was coming. We had been well warned that this production of Mozart’s masterpiece was likely to offend. Set in Italian colonial Africa, we were expecting the ‘adult nature of some scenes’ to feature sex and violence. But what I, at least, had not been expecting was white cast members ‘blacking up’ when adopting a disguise.
In these relentlessly politically correct days, this sort of thing is supposed to be unthinkable.
But there it was; boot-polish faces and curly afro wigs. All that was missing was the big white-painted lips or they could have walked straight out of The Black and White Minstrel Show.
There was even a black cast member who was ‘whited up’. Perhaps this was in the supposed interests of ‘balance’ – or maybe it just compounded the felony.
Most shocking of all was probably the sight of one of the female leads, Lenneke Ruiten, topless on stage, blacking up her breasts. It was certainly a first for me, operatically.
So why did director Christophe Honore go down this road, one must wonder. The setting does help to explain it. Here, in Eritrea in the 1930s, occupied by Mussolini’s army, life, particularly for the indigenous population, is harsh.
Brutality, misogyny and rape are the order of the day. Indeed, in the programme notes, Honore perhaps provides something of an explanation when he writes of his decision to disguise the male leads as dubats, black African mercenaries who fought for Mussolini’s army: ‘The disguises adopted here take on the thoughtless and offensive role of a “blackface”, revealing the disgusting part played by the racist ideology of Mussolini’s colonists.’
But let us return to the opera itself.
One benefit of setting Cosi fan tutte in a thoroughly amoral society helps to emphasise the thoroughly amoral premise of the work – that women are, by nature and inclination, fickle and faithless and always will be.
Controversy aside, this is a very fine production. Created by Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in partnership with the Edinburgh International Festival, Opera de Lille and Korea National Opera, it had its world premiere in Aix earlier this year. This was its UK premiere.
The singing approached the superlative, with the three women just a little better than the three men in the six principal roles.
As Ferrando and Guglielmo, Joel Prieto and Nahuel di Piero were romantic, earthy and lustful in varying measure, while remaining vocally strong. Rod Gilfry’s Don Alfonso was satisfyingly sinister, as the puppet-master philosopher.
Kate Lindsey was simply stunning as Dorabella, one of the two sisters put to the test – and found wanton. A sultry, sozzled strumpet she may have been – but she was vocally supreme and never less than in total control of the role.
As her sister Fiordiligi, Miss Ruiten did not reach quite the same heights, but was nevertheless in fine form, while Sandrine Piau, as the sisters’ minxy maid Despina, stole more scenes than one.
Musically, the production shone, with Jeremie Rhorer in easy but impressive command of the Freiburger Barockorchester, who played quite beautifully.
Sex and violence always sells seats, I suppose. But this production would surely have sold out anyway. However far beyond the pale you try to go, it’s hard to upstage the boy Mozart. Cosi fan tutte (Festival Theatre, Edinburgh) Bad, bold and brilliant