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About this event

Boston area audiences will experience a timeless Mozart masterpiece when Boston Midsummer Opera (BMO) presents their summer 2009 production, Cosi Fan Tutte. Playing at the Tsai Performance Center at Boston University for three performances only, August 5, 7 and 9, this modern adaptation of Mozart’s popular opera about contradictions of the heart features today’s rising stars. Sung in English and performed with a full orchestra, the fully staged and costumed production is conducted by the nationally acclaimed and Boston favorite Susan Davenny-Wyner.

Mozart’s final collaboration with librettist Lorenzo DaPonte, Cosi Fan Tutte premiered in Vienna in 1790. BMO Artistic Director Drew Minter first gave his successful translation and adaptation of the profound comedy for the company Opera Aperta in Boston in 2000, in a critically acclaimed production that was popular with audiences, selling out after the opening performance. Minter’s updated vision of the piece places the action in a country club on the Connecticut coast near New London. The two male protagonists are graduates of the sub base, and their girlfriends are wealthy coeds on summer vacation from their Seven Sisters schools. Despina, the lady’s maid in Mozart’s original, serves as the tennis club’s snack bar attendant, and the men’s older friend Alfonso is a tennis player in the club. Since his production nine years ago, Minter has made updates with a new and improved translation, keeping DaPonte’s rhyme schemes for the most part, but translating them to current style American English. The Boston Globe review of the 2000 production praised Drew Minter’s "brilliant translation" saying he was "more accurate than most translators; there are frequently appropriate touches of racy colloquialism... it was frankly a thrill to be in an audience that was responding to what was actually being sung, rather than to mistimed surtitles."

The cast of Boston Midsummer Opera’s Cosi Fan Tutte features six young, vital opera singers, including soloists who successfully participated in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions Program for young Artists: sopranos Vira Slylowtsky as Fiordiligi and Sarah Heaton as Despina, mezzo-soprano Megan Roth as Dorabella, tenor Darren Anderson (returning to BMO after last summer’s performance as Don José with the company) as Ferrando, baritone David McFerrin as Guglielmo, and bass-baritone Eric Downs as Alfonso.

Having debuted in the summer of 2006, Boston Midsummer Opera has set its sights on presenting entertaining, accessible visions of opera performed at a high level and at a reasonable price. BMO’s talented young singers act their parts in savvy English translations to the delight of audience members young and old. In 2008, BMO presented its first full opera rather than scenes from various operas, as were presented in previous years. The production was Peter Brook’s The Tragedy of Carmen, a gripping adaptation of Georges Bizet’s famous late-19th century opera. Like the upcoming production, Artistic Director Drew Minter was joined by Music Director Susan Davenny-Wyner, who conducted.

Tickets, priced at $50.00 to $20.00 (plus a $5.00 handling fee per ticket order) for all performances, are available by calling 617-227-0442, online atwww.bostonmidsummeropera.org, or by mailing a request to Boston Midsummer Opera, Box 513, 66 Charles Street, Boston, MA 02114.

For more information, visit www.bostonmidsummeropera.org.

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