CLASSIC RECORDINGS FROM ONE OF THE WORLD’S GREAT OPERA HOUSES

Daniela Dessì and Delores Ziegler lead the cast in Mozart's brilliant and witty opera, as the two women whose faithfulness in the face of romantic love is ruthlessly tested in Da Ponte's comic tale. Mozart lavishes some of the finest music ever written on the unfolding story of the two sisters' chaotic and fickle love affairs with their two Italian army officers.

Sung in Italian with English subtitles

Daniela Dessì, Delores Ziegler, Alessandro Corbelli, Jozef Kundlak,  Adelina Scarabelli, Claudio Desderi
Orchestra & Chorus of Teatro alla Scala / Riccardo Muti
Stage Director Michale Hampe

Reviews

'Cosi fan tutte is given an attractive, traditional production by Michael Hampe. Fiordiligi and Guglielmo are well sung by Daniela Dessì and Alessandro Corbelli. Adelina Scarabelli is the knowing Despina and Claudio Desderi the sure-voiced, slightly tetchy Alfonso. Muti gives an assured account of the score.'
Opera Now

‘Here he [Muti] is very much on home turf in Mozart’s magnificent Così. His orchestra is on form, his singers responsive. 
…there is much to admire. Dress is appropriately of the era (the setting is Naples, late 1700s), and Mediterranean blues cast a spell over the daylight.
The stars of this production are, interestingly, (and in this order) Despina and Don Alfonso. Adelina Scarabelli is a cheeky Despina who in tandem with Claudio Desderi’s experienced Alfonso creates the dynamic for the tests of fidelity. The combination of Despina’s youth and Alfonso’s experience is a powerful one (literally so, probably: Desderi recorded Alfonso for Haitink’s EMI Così). Try Act 1 Scene 3 for examples of this – pure theatre. Disguised as the ‘Doctor’, Despina is a riot. Of course it is traditional to use ‘silly voices’ at this point, but Scarabelli succeeds in raising more than a smile without being over the top about it all. As an example of her excellence as Despina proper, just try the Act 2 aria, ‘Una donna a quindici anni’. We see quite a lot of Muti, not only in the overture, but when severally he is superimposed on stage goings-on. This is…effective. …he conducts in a flowing, confident style and the overture encapsulates his take on the score – detailed and busy.
Daniela Dessì is a superb Fiordiligi, tackling ‘Come scoglio’ with aplomb, and superb in ‘Per pietà’, where she maintains the linear continuity over rests well. More, she proves on more than one occasion that she can ‘turn’ a phrase in a millisecond Josef Kindlak’s ‘Un aura amoroso’ (Ferrando) is more than acceptable. Alessandro Corbelli’s Guglielmo can be decidedly cheeky. Delores Ziegler is a lovely Dorabella, simply superb in ‘E amore un ladroncello’.
Importantly, though, all voices seem to blend well in ensemble and in exchanges. Choral work is exemplary throughout.’
Music Web International

'This Così…its Mozartian virtues are considerable. High among them are Mauro Pagano’s radiantly beautiful designs, investing the Naples setting with a Golden-Age Classicism. Then there is the wonderful orchestra – under Riccardo Muti’s  music-directorship La Scala has become a place of regular, idiomatic, finely prepared Mozart performance, as this Così shows. Four out of these six principal singers are native Italians, fully expert with both words and notes; to hear Guglielmo’s ‘Donne mie’ and Alfonso’s ‘Tutti accusàn le donne’ not just expertly sung but bitingly uttered – by Alessandro Corbelli and Claudio Desderi respectively – is to be reminded what so many ‘foreign’ accounts of Mozart’s Italian operas lack. Daniela Dessì’s Fiordiligi is the pearl of the performance – virtuoso, tonally vibrant, emotionally generous… …civilised, graceful and of superior musical accomplishment…’
BBC Music Magazine

‘The 1989 Cosi fan Tutte is a particular delight, staged on Mauro Pugani’s sundrenched seashore with gorgeous costumes roughly contemporary with the composition, and Muti holding together a perfect ensemble in a fairly conventional production by Michel Hampe – none the worse for that. His pacing is perfect and it all moves swiftly through the recits and with no let-downs from the strong cast.’
Musical Pointers