COSÌ FAN TUTTE

In the old days, we thought nothing could happen to us. Now we know that anything can happen to us. That is, in fact, the difference.

Ingmar Bergman, Scenes from a Marriage (1974)

A fancy villa in the forest or perhaps a chalet in the mountains. Two couples of colleagues in their fifties are on holiday with two of their friends. They discuss love with the confidence of maturity: banal scenes from a marriage. But to turn their words into deeds, the two friends suggest that the couples try a special kind of experiment: a role-playing game that is supposed to lead them to a better understanding of themselves. The idyllic setting closes like a trap; what they discover will change them forever. Così fan tutte – the story of an ambiguous initiation alternating wisdom and cruelty – is an obvious next project for Dmitri Tcherniakov in the wake of his Carmen (2017). After The Marriage of Figaro (2021), Thomas Hengelbrock is back with the Balthasar Neumann Orchestra and a cast ideally suited to the project. The Festival d'Aix-en-Provence was born with Così fan tutte in 1948; what work could be more appropriate to celebrate its 75th anniversary?