A blow for fidelity

Così fan tutte
In rep until 17 July

Billy Budd
In rep until 27 June
Glyndebourne

Glyndebourne has opened this year with two troubling operas, but ones which disturb in quite different ways. Così fan tutte is described by Max Loppert, in an excellent essay in the programme, as ‘the cruellest and most disturbing opera ever written’, and, though I can think of a couple of others that might equally lay claim to that title, there is no doubt that Così is a harrowing work, ever more so the more one knows it: which is not at all to deny that it is a comedy — that is what makes it so terrible. 

This revival of Nicholas Hytner’s 2006 production is superb, if not in every respect quite as fine as the first time round. Its distinctive feature, perhaps, is that it is very much on the girls’ side, making their suitors seem almost as detestable as their (the suitors’) mentor Don Alfonso. Guglielmo is all swaggering sexual self-confidence, as played by the tall, dark and handsome Robert Gleadow; Fiordiligi’s collapsing into Ferrando’s arms is seen as an insult worthy of the death sentence — he really means it when he says ‘I wish they were drinking poison’ during the sublime canon of troth-plighting. Allan Clayton’s Ferrando is less conceited, but a budding Don Alfonso himself.

By contrast, the girls are adorable, Barbara Senator’s Dorabella flirtatious but vulnerable, while Sally Matthews is heartbreaking as Fiordiligi. She was the redeeming feature of the Royal Opera’s deplorable revival earlier this year; here she is the near-tragic centre. And in the acoustics of the smaller theatre her wild histrionics take on a further dimension, and the duet in which she finally yields to Ferrando registers a dreadful blow to any lingering faith one might have in fidelity.