Christopher Franklin/Doug Scholz-Carlson for Così Fan Tutte
MN Opera is preparing to mount a groundbreaking new production of Così Fan Tutte where the audience gets have a hand in the finale of the story. BroadwayWorld was able to connect with Principal Conductor Christopher Franklin and Stage Director Doug Scholz-Carlson to discuss this new mounting.
ZR: What inspired the MN Opera to take on such a creative twist to the ending?
DSC: The idea came from Ryan Taylor who has a long history of performing in Cosi including a production that allowed the audience to vote on the ending. In that production, he said the audience was more engaged with the twists and turns in the story than he'd ever experienced. I have no doubt that is true since the audience is going to have to make a decision.
I know we live in a time when expectations of what a relationship should be are changing. Traditional gender roles began to fade more than a generation ago, yet society has not established a new, universally accepted pattern. The way the lovers behave in this story will look like a fun and playful game to some. For others, their behavior may be toxic or offensive. Can these couples find their way back to the loving relationships they had at the beginning? Do they need to accept that the new partners they have found are actually a better match? Or have they wounded each other too deeply to recover? I'm curious to see how the audience perceives it. There isn't a right answer. The conversations audience members will have with each other is the real point - and I am sure we will spark some lively conversations in the lobby and on the drive home.
ZR: How many different endings are there for the audience to choose from?
DSC: There are three. The couples can return to the partners they started with - that is the traditional ending and the way Mozart and Da Ponte intended the piece to end. When the two men return in disguise, they decide it would be fun to try and seduce each other's partners. The women later independently decide they like those new partners, so the audience could choose to leave the couples in their new combinations. The third choice is to have them go their separate ways. If they are playing tricks on their partners, maybe they need to grow up a little before they settle down. Or perhaps the audience will decide it is impossible to recover any relationship after the partners have acted deceitfully towards one another. There is no one answer that will satisfy everyone.
ZR: What kind of logistics go into ensure that everyone is on board and prepared to deliver the selected ending?
DSC: We will have all three endings rehearsed and ready to go. Since the vote takes place at intermission, the performers may be on stage for the second act before we know the result, so we'll have a system to signal from the wings, so they know which ending to perform. None of the music will change, but our maestro may find people in different places on the stage each night. It should be a fun backstage challenge.
ZR: As the audience watches the first half, what hints are given to the audience to influence their decision on which ending they would like to see?
DSC: Both Mozart's music and Da Ponte's libretto are already intentionally full of moments that could be interpreted in multiple ways. That is the nature of a great work of art, and it's especially true of this piece. It is not a textbook. Like life itself, people will see the piece differently based on their own life experience. Mozart and Da Ponte demonstrate their brilliance in that they do not tell the audience what to think or how to feel. If we perform the piece as written and honor the complexities that are already there, no two people will encounter it identically. No two people will hear the same story. Mozart and Da Ponte have already done the work for us, so we won't need to try and encourage the audience to vote one way or the other.
ZR: Is there a specific moment within the production where it becomes clear that the audience is moving into the selected ending? Or is it just played straight through?
DSC: I'll leave that for the audience to discover. I will say that that every audience will hear the same music and the same words from beginning to end.
CF: The three endings take place really at the very end of Act 2 Finale when the outcome is to be established. The original libretto by Da Ponte is actually quite ambiguous. I have conducted several productions of Così fan tutte…and the ending is always the most difficult to stage well. After all that has transpired, it’s not easy to defend the choice that they all go back to their original mates as if nothing has happened. The libretto and music itself has Guglielmo in a bad place during the fake wedding in Act 2 Finale, when the other three seem to be taking to the new couples. Guglielmo is the only one who also musically does not follow the other three, and instead sings of bitter distaste in his mouth, and wanting to “poison these vipers without honor”…meaning the girls, for what they have done.
Some productions of Così fan tutte end in ambiguity, where the original couples have reunited, but are constantly looking over their shoulder at the new partner with longing glances making it clear that these reunited original couples will not be together for long. Some productions have them forging a new path and taking to the new partner. Some productions go the third route have the inevitable outcome that everyone has had enough, and they all go their own way. This production we are mounting in Minnesota this month builds in these three options, with the audience having the final say on which ending they want to see on any given night.
If you come three different evenings, you could potentially see three different endings. It is important to know that not one note of Mozart’s genius score has been altered. So, we will musically be performing the same music for all three endings, it’s just physically the staging is different, and this has an immense impact on how the audience leaves the theater, I believe.
