Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte is RNCM Opera’s Spring production, with performances in the RNCM Theatre between Wednesday 9 and Saturday 19 March.

First performed in 1790, Così fan tutte is set in the bay of Naples where sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella are engaged to Guglielmo and Ferrando. The men trust their fiancées’ faithfulness implicitly but when their friend Don Alfonso tells them a woman’s fidelity is never guaranteed, he is challenged to prove his theory. So a wager is made. Don Alfonso tells the sisters that their sweethearts are to be sent away with their regiment. A tearful farewell follows. Then things really start to get complicated…

Così fan tutte follows on the footsteps of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Sondheim’s Company, Shostakovich’s Paradise Moscow, Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, and Kurt Weill’s Street Scene as one of three fully-staged opera and musical theatre productions to be staged at the RNCm this year.

Guest directed by alumnus Thomas Guthrie (who recently completed a two year contract as Young Artist Stage Director at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden) and conducted by Roger Hamilton, assisted by Manoj Kamps (RNCM Junior Fellow in Conducting), the opera is double cast featuring talented students from the School of Vocal Studies and Opera, including soprano Alexandra Lowe and tenor Alexander Grainger, recipients of the inaugural Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation Sarah Brightman Scholarships, accompanied by the RNCM Opera Orchestra and Chorus.  Set and costume design is by Rhiannon Newman Brown (Glyndebourne Youth Opera, Royal Opera House Youth Opera Company, London 2012 Olympics), with lighting by Rachael McCutcheon (Scottish Opera, Opera North, Royal Opera House).

Così fan tutte runs at the RNCM between Wednesday 9 and Saturday 19 March.  Tickets £34, £28, £21 (weekdays); £36, £30, £23 (weekends).