Così Fan Tutte, 2026
Opera Holland Park
Conductor: Charlotte Corderoy | Designer: Neil Irish | Lighting Designer: Robert Price
Cast: Elizabeth Karani, Osian Wyn Bowen, Paul Grant, Madeline Boreham, Shakira Tsindos, Paul Carey Jones
★★★★★
”Stinton’s 1950s Naples is a triumph for Opera Holland Park”
Music OMH, Sam Smith
★★★★
“Humour and irony are handled deftly”
The Stage, Yehuda Shapiro
★★★★
”High farce and explosive feeling collide in a Fifties Neapolitan romp”
The Arts Desk, Boyd Tonkin
★★★★
”Mount Vesuvius looms over Cecilia Stinton’s compelling new production of Così fan tutte”
Bachtrack, Peter Quantrill
“Cecilia Stinton is brimming with fresh ideas, shifting the action to 1960s Naples and promoting the role of the maid Despina to front and centre… We first see her on the tarmac at the airport, bats in hand, waving in the plane that carries sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella, who have flown in to meet their US marine boyfriends. Next, we see her behind the passport desk, before appearing as both receptionist and chambermaid at their hotel. Later, she cooks and slops out some unruly spaghetti. Then she’s washing up. You get the picture. Think Goldoni’s frenzied Truffaldino. None of this would have been possible without the impeccable comic timing of the soprano Elizabeth Karani. Every one of her numerous madcap appearances is a treat…. In Act II, the lovers visit Pompeii, where Boreham sings Fiordiligi’s aria Per pietà, ben mio, perdona with real poise, the music underscored by Stinton’s decision to include, centre stage, a representation of the two figures who have stayed locked in an embrace since the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79. The fact that in 2017 they were found to be two men hardly matters. The message is clear: as Philip Larkin wrote: “What will survive of us is love”.”
The Observer, Stephen Pritchard