New York City Opera Presents Mozart's COSÌ FAN TUTTE at John Jay College, 3/18-24

New York City Opera presents the second installment in director Christopher Alden's Mozart/Da Ponte cycle for the company with Così fan tutte, March 18-24 in the intimate space of the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at Manhattan's John Jay College.

After his visionary staging of Don Giovanni for NYC Opera in 2009, Alden brings similar daring to his production of Così, Mozart's bittersweet meditation on the ever-thorny issues of loyalty and commitment, attraction and desire. Covering his Don Giovanni, the New York Observer declared that Alden creates “the most consistently vibrant operatic theater in the city. . . If City Opera gives us an Alden production a year in perpetuity, it'll be an extraordinary gift to our cultural life." 

Così fan tutte will be enlivened by a vibrant, talented cast, including Jennifer Holloway (Dorabella), Allan Clayton (Ferrando) and Rod Gilfry (Don Alfonso) in their NYC Opera debuts, along with returning artists Sara Jakubiak (Fiordiligi), Marie Lenormand (Despina) and Philip Cutlip (Guglielmo). The performances will be conducted by Christian Curnyn. The sets are designed by Andrew Lieberman and costumes by Terese Wadden, with lighting design by Aaron Black. 

Christopher Alden, a native of New York City and a veteran of New York City Opera – his first production for the company was Rossini’s Le comte Ory in 1979 – returns to directing for NYC Opera after his 2010 production of A Quiet Place. The New York Times, in an autumn feature story on Alden's preparations for Così fan tutte, wrote, "Mr. Alden’s work has always been thoughtful and provocative, but it has lately taken on an even greater elegance and subtle power. His recent productions for City Opera – Don Giovanni in 2009 and Bernstein’s A Quiet Place last year – revealed new depths in two very different operas." The article described the Così production as "set in a park as night falls and envelops the characters in darkness as they play out the plot’s cruel game: Two men, egged on by an older friend, disguise themselves to test their fiancées’ fidelity, a test both fail."

Così is the last, and least well-known, of the three famed collaborations between Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte, which includes not only Don Giovanni, but also Le nozze di Figaro, one of the most popular operas ever written. The Times quoted Alden on his penetrating and very contemporary conception of the opera: "The piece to me is a dark story about a thing that we all go through in our lives as we move into adulthood, moving from a place of innocence to a place of experience. It’s a ceremony of innocence drowned." 

General Manager and Artistic Director George Steel’s vision for NYC Opera is to have the company’s productions matched to the most appropriate venues, and the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College is no exception. After starting the season with La traviata in the only currently operational 19^th-century opera house in New York City, BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House, NYC Opera turns to a space with a size that would not have been out of place in Mozart’s time for Così fan tutte. NYC Opera’s 2012 season concludes with Georg Philipp Telemann’s Orpheus, performed at El Museo del Barrio in May. 

Tickets for Così fan tutte and other productions in New York City Opera’s 2012 season can be purchased by phone at (212) 870-5600 or online at www.nycOpera.com.