BY KAREN BOSSICK
Tony Award winner Kelli O’Hara, who appeared in Sun Valley in 2016 on behalf of Sun Valley Opera, will light up the big screen on Saturday when Live from the Met in HD presents “Cosi fan tutte.”
O’ Hara will sing the role of a young lover who tests her lover’s faithfulness in Mozart’s comedy about the sexes.
The 3.5-hour screening will start at 11 a.m. at Big Wood 4 Cinemas in Hailey. Doors open at 10 a.m. Tickets are $16 and free admission will be provided for students, provided they contact Sun Valley Opera’s executive director Mary Jo Helmeke ahead of time at 208-720-5584.
Phelm McDermott’s clever vision of the opera, which boasts elements from Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” is set in a carnival-esque, funhouse environment inspired by 1950s Coney Island and its bearded ladies, fire eaters and ferris wheel.
The opera, which premiered in 1790 in Vienna, is a comedy revolving around manners with an intensely dark take on human nature. Every possible impression of love from the loftiest to the basest, including fiancé swapping, is explored.
The title is usually translated into English as “Women are like that.” The opera opens with Don Alfonso wagering two officers that he can prove that all women are fickle. The officers pretend to go off to war but instead disguise themselves and try to seduce each other’s finance. Meanwhile, Despina, played by Kelli O’Hara, advises the young women to take new lovers while their men are away.
There is evidence that Mozart’s contemporary Antonio Salieri tried to set the libretto but left it unfinished .While the opera did not offend Viennese sensibilities of its time, it was considered vulgar and immoral throughout the 18th and early 20th centuries.
It was not performed in the United States until 1922 when it was performed at New York.
Singers include Christopher Maltman as Don Alfonso, Amanda Majeski, Serena Malfi, Ben Bliss and Adam Plachetka. David Robertson conducts.