by Patrick White
Are you ready to par-tay? Glimmerglass Festival is throwing a bash, a monster mash with their new production of Cosí whose abbreviated title is just the opening salvo on what’s been lovingly and thoughtfully created with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte’s Cosí fan tutte which is itself an abbreviation of the full phrase “Cosí fan tutte, ossia La scuolo degli amanti” which means “They all do it or The School for Lovers.” And by “they,” they mean women. Women all do “it.”
Director Eric Einhorn with the help of his excellent technical creative team: James Rotondo’s set, Beth Goldenberg’s costumes and Kate Ashton’s lighting design have taken Cosí out of its 1790 drawing rooms and dropped us off at Sudbury College in the 1990’s where there’s a Halloween party happening at one of the residence dorms. We know this because there are athletic championship banners hanging in front of the stage curtain heralding Sudbury’s championships.
The opera begins when the curtain rises to reveal Rotondo’s magnificent set. It’s a cross section of a huge two-story Sudbury dorm building with a lounge downstairs furnished with hang out couches, a vending machine, believable elevator and a foosball table. Upstairs are the sister’s, Fiordiligi and Dorabella’s bedroom, a hall to other rooms visible and a public restroom. It’s an amazing set which is used is used in surprising and creative ways throughout the three hour opera by the principle cast and the many supernumeraries who are guests at a Halloween party happening during the show.
The comic opera presents a challenge from the philosopher Alfonso to the young lovers (in the original they were soldiers, here they are athletes) Ferrando (Travon D. Walker) and Guglielmo (Gregory Feldmann) that their fiancées Fiordiligi (Amanda Batista) and Dorabella (Michelle Mariposa) will not remain constant when the men are not present. It is agreed that the football players will be removed with injuries to rehab and the women (who are also sisters) must deal with the advances of two costumed men at the Halloween party that night who are, of course, each other’s intended in disguise. Alfonso is aided by the scheming maid Delspina (Keely Futterer) here a Resident Advisor. The cast is uniformly excellent, beautiful to listen to, light hearted but can make you feel the anguish as well.
The greatest asset of this production is, no question, the genius of Mozart’s music conducted by Glimmerglass’s maestro Joseph Colaneri. Many people prefer Cosí over Mozart’s more celebrated and more frequently produced collaborations with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte’s: The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni. It contains some of the most sublime music Mozart ever wrote. It has an intricate combination of arias, duets, trios, quartets and sextets and Amanda Batista’s Fiordiligi is as solid as a rock with her aria of devotion in any language.
The English adaptation by Kelly Rourke is amazing, provoking many laughs and able to convey the full humanity of all four lovers as they are pulled through the knot hole of the plot’s machinations. It’s hard to imagine coming up with English translations for these lines while matching it to this brilliant music. Rourke wittily contemporizes, indulges in all sorts of low comedy, including some toilet humor (mixing punch in the bowl) while still being able to score philosophical points. I have never laughed so much at the opera.
The philosopher Alfonso is a janitor in this update and Kevin Burdette who is an Artist-in-Residence this summer makes the most of all the comic opportunities with this buffo role. He is an especially physically expressive performer and had no problem earning laughs with his loose limbed gestures along with his recitative.
Beth Goldenberg’s costumes deserve special mention as she has a lot of fun with the Halloween party with guests dressed up as a slice of pizza, a large boxy robot, Freddy Krueger and our heroes as a strongman and a clown and the ladies as a bunny and Belle from Beauty and the Beast.
After seeing a number of shows this summer that dealt with death and grieving (A Hundred Words for Snow, Estate Sale, Letters From Max and more), I was very grateful for Così’s cheerful good nature and relatively sunny outlook.
The Glimmerglass Festival presents Così, music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, English adaptation by Kelly Rourke, directed by Eric Einhorn, conducted by Joseph Colaneri, July 17-August 14, 2026 at Glimmerglass Festival’s Alice Busch Opera Theater, located at 7300 State Highway 80 in Cooperstown, NY. CAST: Travon D. Walker as Ferrando, Gregory Feldmann as Guglielmo, Amanda Batista as Fiordiligi, Michelle Mariposa as Dorabella, Delspina Keely Futterer as Delspina, Kevin Burdette as Alfonso. ENSEMBLE: Nia Spaulding, Samantha Sosa, Jaelynn Ricks, Lauren Torey, Xiao Xiao, Hobbs, Carlos Ahrens, Jude Emperado, Randy Ho, William Raskin, Alex Smith, and Noah Mond. CREATIVE TEAM: Choreography by Madison Manning, assistant director Sable Strout, assistant conductor Brian McCann, principal coach Kimberley-Ann Bartczak, second pianist and coach Tongyao Li, chorus director Katherine Kozak, set design by James Rotondo, costume design by Beth Goldenberg, lighting design by Kate Ashton, hair & makeup design by Tom Watson.
Presented in English with English projected titles
Approx. Running Time: 3 hours (including a 25-minute intermission)
Box Office Hours:
Monday – Saturday: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Sunday: 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Closed Wednesdays
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