Last Updated on February 15, 2026
A Timely Revival of Phelim McDermott’s Stylish Così fan Tutte.
4.0 out of 5.0 stars
Two-act comic opera Così fan tutte (Women are like that) is the last of Mozart’s trio of collaborations with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. Cosi was a commission from the court of the Habsburg monarch Joseph II, and, with Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni, is a central part of the operatic canon. The opera premiered in January 1790 at the court-run Burgtheater in Vienna, with only 10 initial performances and a frosty critical reception due to its perceived immorality. In more recent years, critical opinion has shifted, with Così fan tutte being seen as a sophisticated unpacking of the foibles of human romance, emotion, and weakness, with contemporaneous critics having missed what author E.T.A. Hoffmann describes as the ‘most delectable irony’ at its heart. It is that irony that allows Così fan tutte still to breathe in today’s world, with the conception of women as weak-willed and unable to resist temptation now being looked at in the context of male ‘gaslighting’ and control.
The story of Così Fan Tutte centres around two young couples. Ferrando and Guglielmo are naive young chaps who believe in the honour and fidelity of their inamoratas, Dorabella and Fiordiligi. The two innocents are lured into a wager by their older mentor, Don Alfonso. Ably assisted by his perfect foil, the maid Despina, Alfonso insists that it is in a woman’s nature to be unfaithful. Don Alfonso suggests to Dorabella and Fiordiligi that the young men pretend to have been called away to fight in the army, so that they can return in disguise as Albanian noblemen and test the moral resolve of the other’s girlfriend by attempting to seduce them. The wager is to play out in a 24-hour window. Emotional chaos breaks out as Don Alfonso’s plan is predictably successful, and the two male lovers are caught in a trap of their own setting.
Last night’s performance was the opening night of this, the second revival of Phelim McDermott’s 2014 production, a co-production with the Met in New York. McDermott is the Artistic Director of Improbable, an improvisation-based theatre company that has collaborated on five productions with the ENO. McDermott has transplanted the opera to Coney Island in the 1950s. Designer Tom Pye has created a charming simulacrum of New York’s signature amusement district with its signature boardwalk, the Cyclone rollercoaster, Ferris wheel and pleasure garden all decked out in gaudy pastels that have escaped from a Cath Kidston catalogue. It’s an appropriate space for youthful courtships to play out in a society where women know their place.
Ferrando and Guglielmo are presented as naval rather than army officers, and we first meet them in the Playboy Club, where Don Alfonso lures them into his scheme. When Ferrando and Guglielmo return in disguise, McDermott has them decked out as Italian ‘greasers’ wearing dark blue jeans with turn-ups, brown leather jackets and boots. It’s a conceit that is dramatically coherent and creates a Mozart x Grease cultural mash-up with the girls in bobby sox, brown Oxfords, and cardigans.
McDermott fills out the stage with circus and freak show acts. There’s a sword swallower, a fire-eater, little people and tumblers who all miraculously appear out of a magical box of tricks during the overture. The opening music gets lost in the visual onslaught, and some smart visual gags ensue. But unlike Cal McCrystal’s hilarious recent HMS Pinafore for the ENO, these diversions don’t take over, retreating into creating a colourful backdrop for the young lovers.
Master of ceremonies and arch-manipulator of this motley crew of innocents and showpeople is bass-baritone Andrew Foster-Williams’s Don Alfonso. Dressed in a mustard yellow zoot suit and two-tone shoes, he toys with the emotions of the youngsters, but it feels playful rather than malign. Without any arias of his own, Foster-Williams is restricted to recitative and ensemble singing, but his potent characterful voice stands out in what is a strong cast.
Irish soprano Ailish Tynan plays Despina, in this production, a beehived chambermaid at the Skyline Motel. Tynan is making a career out of playing feisty domestics, recently bringing the house down as Bartolo’s exasperated servant Berta in The Barber of Seville at the Royal Opera House. She has a sparkling coloratura as well as a comic twinkle in her eye and sings the role in an Irish-American accent, which adds to this production of Così fan tutte’s sense of authenticity.
Soprano Lucy Crowe, an otherworldly Tytania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Garsington, plays Fiordiligi, the more resistant of the two sisters to seduction.
Crowe and her onstage sister Dorabella, American mezzo-soprano Taylor Raven, making her house debut with the ENO, have well-matched, creamy, warm vocal tones, which made their duets a delight. They make an attractive pair of ingenues.
British-American tenor Joshua Blue is excellent as Ferrando with his lyric tenor in overdrive as the character’s romantic fantasies imploded. He brings power and emotion to the table and is just the sort of young singer the ENO should be showcasing.
Up-and-coming Indian baritone Darwin Prakash, who has made a name for himself in Mozartian roles in Germany, plays the more restrained Guglielmo. Prakash’s dark vocal timbre suits the role, and his more sombre presence created a pleasing counterpoint with Joshua Blue’s.
Dinis Sousa, Principal Conductor of the Royal Northern Sinfonia, is in the pit waving the baton. Certain tempi felt slightly undercooked, especially in the vocal ensemble numbers, which demand energy, but the band was tightly controlled and played with precision and dynamic control.
There’s plenty to delight and amuse in this take on Così Fan Tutte. In many ways, it’s a perfect ‘gateway opera’, and this sort of production makes the art form accessible to opera newbies, many of whom seemed to be in attendance last night.
6 – 21 Feb 2026
English National Opera
London Coliseum, St Martin’s Lane, London WC2N 4ES
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