Mozart: Cosi Fan Tutte

This is a spirited performance, with many admirable features, Daniel Barenboim is here at his best, conducting a penetrating, idiomatic account of this astonishing score, and never missing a chance for pathos or wit.

The soloists are slightly uneven, but Hanno Müller-Brachmann, the leading lyrical baritone of today, is tremendous as Guglielmo, though without upstaging his colleagues. How many opera-singers could strip to white Y-fronts and still be so convincing?

Our rating

4

Michael Beek

Published: January 20, 2012 at 4:31 pm

COMPOSERS: Mozart
LABELS: EuroArts
PERFORMER: Dorothea Röschmann, Katharina Kammerloher, Hanno Müller-Brachmann, Werner Güra, Daniela Bruera, Roman Trekel; Berlin State Opera Chorus; Staatskapelle Berlin/Daniel Barenboim; dir. Doris Dörrie (Berlin, 2002)
CATALOGUE NO: 2052238

This is a spirited performance, with many admirable features, Daniel Barenboim is here at his best, conducting a penetrating, idiomatic account of this astonishing score, and never missing a chance for pathos or wit.

The soloists are slightly uneven, but Hanno Müller-Brachmann, the leading lyrical baritone of today, is tremendous as Guglielmo, though without upstaging his colleagues. How many opera-singers could strip to white Y-fronts and still be so convincing?

Werner Güra, the Ferrando, has a great voice, but is only a tolerable actor, and lacks charisma. The Fiordiligi of Dorothea Röschmann is another electrifying performance, by far the best I have seen from her. And Roman Trekel’s Don Alfonso, youthful, cold, scheming, obviously destined for top management, is an alarming portrayal.

The director, Doris Dörrie, has almost never seen an opera, which in Germany nowadays is a prerequisite for directing one. She sees Così in cinematic terms, so that DVD viewers probably get a better deal than theatre-goers, since we don’t have to see all segments of the stage all the time, as the audience did.

She sets it in the 1970s, and there are some good hippy gags, but this pair of girls would have been far too experienced to be taken in by any of the male intrigues. All told, the undercurrent of powerful emotions is short-changed in this production. Michael Tanner

Reviews Editor, BBC Music Magazine

Michael is the Reviews Editor of BBC Music Magazine. He looks after the 26 pages of recording and book reviews in the magazine each month, deciding what will be reviewed – no easy task with so much being sent in for consideration! Michael joined the team in 2018, following ten years as a freelance film music journalist and fifteen years at St George's Bristol. Film and television music is his favourite thing, and when he’s not listening to things to be reviewed in the mag, Michael loves nothing more than to listen to the music of John Williams and James Horner – his favourite film composers. He was the Editor of MusicfromtheMovies.com and has written for the BBC Proms, BBC Concert Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Albert Hall, Hollywood in Vienna and Silva Screen Records. His favourite writing gigs so far have been programmes for each of the Doctor Who Proms, soundtrack album notes for Doctor Who – Series 4 and Torchwood – Children of Earth, plus programmes and features for live concert screenings of Jurassic Park, Gladiator, Back to the Future and Raiders of the Lost Ark. While he never got the chance to interview the late James Horner, Michael was delighted to spend an hour on the phone with John Williams for the 2020 Christmas issue of BBC Music Magazine. Also a presenter, Michael has hosted concerts and live events for Bristol Film Festival and St George's Bristol, plus Debbie Wiseman's ‘Music and Words from Wolf Hall’ shows at venues across the UK. Michael has worked regularly with Debbie Wiseman over the years, writing concert programmes and scripts (for Terry Wogan and Simon Bates) and producing her 2011 album Piano Stories.