Così fan tutte (Wells-next-the-Sea)
Susie Self's Seastar Opera obviously doesn't believe in playing it safe. Last year's The Turn of the Screw is followed by a double-cast Così fan tutte for 2014. This uses a pretty complete edition of Mozart's score, albeit scaled down for piano and woodwind, and da Ponte's libretto is sung in Italian.
Our seasiding sisters are 21ist century girls, spending a holiday on the Norfolk coast (location projections by Nigel Baker) and involved with a brace of naval (or are they SAS?) officers. We meet Ferrando (Nicholas Buxton) and Guglielmo (Nick Beever) in a gym under the watchful eye of old sea-dog Alfonso (Graham Stone).
Despina comes in the shape of life coach Sarah Gallop. She's fed up to the proverbial teeth with the whims and fancies of both her clients (Barbara Gentili as Fiordiligi) and Dorabella (Lucy Goddard) and happily enters into Alfonso's scheme to make all four young people wake up to reality.
By far the best singing comes from Goddard, a soprano with a dark as well as high register who acts with her eyes as well as with her voice and body. Both "Smanie implacabili" and "E amore un ladroncello" are very good. She balances Gentili (whose second act "Per pietà" is much better than her "Come scoglio") to perfection in the duets and concerted numbers.
Beever's Gugliemo is a clever interpretation; you sense that he's still floundering to discover what's really best for himself as well as for the others. "Il coro vi dono" in the second act wooing of Dorabella really makes an impact. Stone is a bluff manipulator of events; Gallop's "In uomini, in soldati" works well; "Una donna a quindici anni" less so.
As he sings Ferrando in all performances and had already performed in the matinée on opening day of the run, it would be unfair to judge Buxton too harshly. "Un' aura amorosa" lacked the golden lyricism it really requires. Self is the conductor with Alexander Wells (piano) Katie Macdonald (Flute) and Stephen Richards (clarinets and saxophone) as the instrumentalists.
Così fan tutte continues at the Granary Theatre, Wells-next-the-Sea until 3 August.
