OPERA SEASON 2011-2012
COSÌ FAN TUTTE
The Opera signed by Ettore Scola
Teatro Regio, 10th April 2012 at 20.00
Così fan tutte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart will be staged at the Teatro Regio on Tuesday,
10th April. It is a playful drama signed by Ettore Scola, the great film director who chose the Regio
to debut in 2003 as an opera director. The American conductor Christopher Franklin will be on the
podium.
The author of cult movies such as Una giornata particolare, C’eravamo tanto amati and La famiglia
is back to Turin, to dedicate himself to the opera in a performance that was met with great support,
thanks to the careful work Mr. Scola carried out with the singers. Paolo Gallarati wrote in La Stampa
newspaper: «Ettore Scola has made Così fan tutte vital and enjoyable and absolutely up-to-date from
beginning to end».
The staging, created by the set design laboratories of the Teatro Regio, uses the scenes by
Luciano Ricceri and costumes by Odette Nicoletti. The direction of this edition will by Vittorio
Borelli, the lights are by Andrea Anfossi.
Così fan tutte is the last comic opera written by Mozart and staged in Vienna in 1790,
concluding the trilogy of Italian operas written by Mozart with the libretto written by Lorenzo Da
Ponte. Così fan tutte was written following: Le nozze di Figaro (1786) and Don Giovanni (1787). In the
libretto, Da Ponte depicts the cruelty of gender relations and the alleged physical and exclusively
male domain of one person but, for the first time in the comic opera loyalty is tested by two ladies of
high social class. Despite the originality of the story, Da Ponte creates a dense web of quotations
ranging from Ovid to Boccaccio, Ariosto, Goldoni and Marivaux.
The story is set in Naples 1700 where the adventures of two young officers, Ferrando and
Guglielmo, who in order to test the fidelity of their fiancées, Fiordiligi and Dorabella, go on to court
them but in disguise. The courtship has had great success however, the ladies fancied each other’s
fiancé. The cynical Don Alfonso and Despina the maid, going along with the practical joke,
organized a fake marriage, just before the whole trick is revealed. The girls ask for forgiveness and
the two couples are finally reconciled.
Christopher Franklin - who returns to the Regio after the 2004 Billy Bud - directs a cast of
expert Mozart interpreters. The two young ladies are played by Carmela Remigio (Fiordiligi) and
Laura Polverelli (Dorabella) both from Ferrara. Carmela Remigio returns to the Regio after being
the star of another Mozart masterpiece La clemenza di Tito. Laura Polverelli (Dorabella) was also the
protagonist of the same opera in 2003; Marco Nisticò is Guglielmo and Andrew Kennedy is
Ferrando. Barbara Bargnesi is Despina, Carlo Lepore, Don Alfonso. The Choir of the Regio is
directed by Claudio Fenoglio.
Erika Grimaldi (Fiordiligi), Daniela Pini (Dorabella), Alessio Arduini (Guglielmo), Edgardo
Rocha (Ferrando), Arianna Vendittelli (Despina) and Natale De Carolis (Don Alfonso) will alternate
roles along the nine performances until the last performance on 22nd April.
The production of Così fan tutte is sponsored by ASI – the Italian Space Agency, the
Supporting Partner of the Teatro Regio. For the occasion of this sponsorship from 26th March to
23rd April a model of the Vega launcher, which successfully took off on 13th February from Kourou
in French Guyana, can be seen at the Tamagno gallery. The European Space Agency (ESA) sees Italy
in the leading role both as a principal shareholder of the program, with a contribution of more than
60% of the total cost. It has also designed and built the spacecraft and the launch of its infrastructure
for the program as well as the development of the Vega launcher.
Così fan tutte will be presented to the public by Ernesto Napolitano in Incontro con l’Opera at
the Piccolo Regio Puccini on Wednesday 28th March at 17.30 and will be broadcast live by RAIRadio 3 on Tuesday, 10th April at 20:00.
Box Office information: Teatro Regio, Piazza Castello 215.
Website: www.teatroregio.torino.it
email: [email protected] or call us on
011.8815.241/242 and 011/8815.557.
Turin, 22nd February, 2012
PRESS OFFICE
Teatro Regio, Communication and Public Relation Direction
Paola Giunti (Director), Sara Zago (Media Relation)
Phone: +39 011 8815233 – 8815239
E-mail: [email protected] – [email protected] – [email protected]
www.teatroregio.torino.it