Mozart Così fan tutte opera to libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Directed 2021 by Sven-Eric Bechtolf at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Stars Valentina Nafornița (Fiordiligi), Vasilisa Berzhanskaya (Dorabella), Benedetta Torre (Despina), Mattia Olivieri (Guglielmo), Matthew Swensen (Ferrando), and Thomas Hampson (Don Alfonso). Zubin Mehta conducts the Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Set design by Julian Crouch; costume design by Kevin Pollard; lighting design by Alex Brok; video by Josh Higgason. Directed for TV by Tiziano Mancini. Sung in Italian. Released 2022, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA
In 2022, we have a crowded field of 10 different Blu-rays of Così. Richard Lawrence, writing in the June 2022 Gramophone (pages 85-86) has probably seen them all. He doesn’t like the lack of even a “lets pretend” disguise for the men when they appear as new suitors for the girls. Although he liked the music, the weakness in staging leads Lawrence to conclude that this is “not a top choice, but worth investigating.” H’m—faint praise. Robert Croan is more harsh in the October 2022 Opera News (pages 62-63) where he asserts that neither Nafornița nor Berzhanskaya display the horsepower needed to fully realize their arias.
Here’s a trailer from Naxos:
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