Have you ever read one of those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books for children? Written in second person, they allow a reader to make decisions that change the direction of the plot, the next chapter you should turn to determined by a decision you’ve made.
Minnesota Opera is doing something similar with its new production of Mozart’s rom-com of an opera, “Così fan tutte,” which opens the company’s 63rd season. Mozart and his librettist left this opera open-ended enough that a company can easily change up the denouement.
In this case, audiences are asked to vote at intermission whether the story’s two central couples should remain together, change partners or go their separate ways. How the opera resolves will depend upon which jar audience members have placed their chips into at intermission, with voting stations dotting the two-level lobby of St. Paul’s Ordway Center.
If you’re a hardcore traditionalist who sees that as sacrilege, well, this production is certainly not for you, for that’s just the last of multiple modern updates to this 1790 creation. But I found the production delightful.
While Mozart’s music is sung splendidly by the opera’s six principal characters and chorus, and conductor Christopher Franklin and the Minnesota Opera Orchestra suffuse it with tones quite faithful to the era — right down to the woody sound of Celeste Marie Johnson’s fortepiano, an ancestor of the modern piano — what makes this staging so memorable is how it transposes the tale to a contemporary urban setting via one imaginative idea after another.
And that does wonders for a story that can seem hopelessly out of touch with modern sensibilities. In a nutshell, two soldiers boasting of their faithful fiancées are challenged by a friend to prank them by posing as lovestruck visitors set to seduce one another’s partners while their paramours are (supposedly) deployed. Will the women remain faithful, decide to engage in brief flings or perhaps even fall in love with their seducers?
Director Doug Scholz-Carlson has conspired with the design team of Amber Brown, Emma Gustafson and, particularly, Paul Whitaker — creator of its endlessly eye-catching sets and lighting — to make Minnesota Opera’s production a tremendously enjoyable update to this archaic tale.
In this version, our soldiers and their cynical friend engage in their argument about fidelity while playing video games and slamming Busch Lights. Meanwhile, our female leads run a bustling urban ad agency. While their preferred after-hours establishment is a classy cocktail lounge, their beaus opt for the patio of a local taproom, complete with firepit and cornhole game.
