Oberlin Updates Scandalous Guilty Pleasure The School For Lovers

Wed 3/11 at 8PM

Fri 3/13 at 8PM

Sat 3/14 at 8PM

Sun 3/15 at 2PM

You know that trashy rom com series that you just can’t stop binging? That sort of describes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s classic comic opera Cosí Fan Tutti, usually translated as “Women Are Like That,” subtitled The School For Lovers.

When the tale of fiancée swapping and deceitful romance first premiered in 1790, audiences took it in stride, but later, more conservative audiences called it risqué, vulgar and immoral due to the frank depiction of romance. Now we’re interested.

Funny story: Mozart hated the singer Adriana Ferrarese Del Bene, librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte’s arrogant mistress, for whom the lead soprano role had been created. Mozart was annoyed by her tendency to drop her chin on low notes and throw her head back haughtily on the high notes, so he wrote the score with alternating high and low notes just to watch her head “bob like a chicken” during her showpiece aria. We’ll be watching for that!

It almost sounds like a Judd Apatow movie. The story revolves around two couples planning to be married, and the men are convinced that their women will be eternally faithful, until a buddy talks them into seducing each other’s finacée, just to see what happens.

Then there are the creepy echoes in today’s society. Oberlin director Jonathon Field notes, “the remarkable ability of humans to lie: to just look each other in the face and lie. The code of honor had changed over the years, but the lying, I’m sorry to say, has not!”

And allow us to take a moment to exclaim how absolutely delightful the music is from top to bottom.

Oberlin Opera Theatre presents Mozart’s Cosí Fan Tutti in four performances only, starting Wed 3/11 in Oberlin’s Hall Auditorium, supported by Oberlin Orchestra, under the direction of Christopher Larkin.

Oberlin Conservatory

Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH 44074

 

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