Cosi Fan Tutte
Review by Ernest Goes To The Theatre/Ernest Edwards
Cosi Fan Tutte is the first show of the 63rd Season for Minnesota Opera. This Mozart opera is now 235 years old. Minnesota Opera decided to do something different and let the audience vote on the ending. I loved that. I’ll get to that later in the review.
Normally for MN Opera, my season tickets are for opening night. For this production, opening night coincided with the night I went to Purple Rain at the State Theatre. I ended up going to the closing weekend of Cosi Fan Tutte.
They modernized the story to present day. Present day scenery and costumes. I liked that concept. Having an office scene for most of the first half of the show. It was funny watching the chorus in the office shuffle papers, sip coffee, look at laptop screens and really admire a poster on stage. They did not steal focus, it was me keeping an eye what were they doing in the background.
The story focuses on the relationships of sisters Dorabella & Fiordiligi and their boyfriends. Dorabelle is with Fernando and Fiordiligi is with Geglielmo. The guys friend Don Alfonso thinks it would be fun to test the lady’s fidelity. The men “go away to the military” and return in disguise to woo the other’s partner. To see if the sisters will easily love another. During intermission the audience get’s to vote.
Based on the events of first half of the show, the audience got to vote for the ending during the intermission. Do we go with the traditional ending, where all is forgiven and the couples stay together? Or do we go with the new coupling from the games played by the guys? Or did things go too far and nothing is forgivable and the couples go their separate ways? The cast is told backstage part way through the second act, how the audience voted. Based on what I had seen Saturday night, it was the very ending that was changed. I’ll tell you how the audience voted the night I went. That audience went with option 3, the couples split up.
This was a good old fashioned opera. With a run time of 3 hours and 20 minutes. A Saturday evening is a great time for a show of that length. It felt like the first act moved a good pace. The core six actors had wonderful voices and stage presence. Angel Vargas as Fernando, John Mburu as Don Alfonso, Kara Moran as Dorabella, David Wolfe as Guglielmo, Kylie Kreucher as Fiordiligi, and Lindsay Ohse as Dephina.
This was a fun start to the 2025/2026 season for MN Opera. I’m looking forward to the rest of the season.
