Preview - Cosi fan Tutte at the Hampstead Garden Opera
Pictured Above: Cosí director Daisy Evans
Published: 26 April, 2012
by SEBASTIAN TAYLOR
Hampstead Garden Opera’s new production of Mozart’s Cosí Fan Tutte is opening at Upstairs at the Gatehouse in Highgate tomorrow (Friday).
And there’s every reason to expect an entertaining production directed by Daisy Evans.
She’s gained a reputation as the “Silent Opera” director after directing Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas using Silent Disco technology in a production under London Bridge arches last year.
The technology allows dancers to rave away to their hearts’ content, listening to their own personal soundtracks on their headphones.
Her Dido had singers and dancers but no orchestra. Instead, the pre-recorded orchestral playing was relayed to the audience’s headsets mixed with the singing conducted in time with the recording.
For the HGO, she’s relocating Cosí to Sicily in 1943. Dorabella, Fiordiligi and Despina are part of an Entertainments National Service Association group performing for British and American soldiers among the Allied troops, among them Guglielmo, Ferrando and “Don” Alfonso.
“When I came to devise a concept for Cosí, I wanted to find the correct context for these definitive characters to inhabit and to find a meaning behind their wild mood changes and attitudes,” she said.
“It seemed appropriate to give it a war-time setting where there’s no idea of what the future might hold in a micro-society far from home with people you’d never normally encounter.
Therefore, I welcome you to Cosí in Sicily in October 1943.
“The American troops are better paid than the British and have things Europe had either never seen such as nylon stockings or haven’t seen for years, like chocolate and silk underwear.
With American GIs making a striking impact on British girls, the marriage rate is soaring and the GIs are earning the catch-phrase ‘over-paid, over-sexed and over here’.’’
• Cosi fan Tutte by Hampstead Garden Opera, Upstairs at the Gatehouse, Highgate, N6 4BD. Evenings: April 27, 28, May 1-5 at 7.30pm; matinées: April 29 and May 6 at 4pm.
Tickets: April 27 and 28 £18/cons £16; all other performances £20/ cons 18, 020 8340 3488, www.upstairsatthegate house.com