Broadway

Opera Holland Park Presents a Faithful, Female-Directed Take on Così fan tutte

A female director stages Così fan tutte for a second time, preserving the opera's core theme of female infidelity in its third season at Holland Park's semi-open venue.

BroadwayWorld·Jun 1, 2026·via BroadwayWorld

Opera Holland Park Presents a Faithful, Female-Directed Take on Così fan tutte

Cecilia Stinton sets the action in postwar Naples, with ostensibly American GIs stationed there and their girlfriends flying in from across the Atlantic. It’s an idea with real promise. A city still marked by occupation, saturated in tourist gloss and transactional desire, is a far more pointed setting for Alfonso’s cynicism than Mozart’s original world. But Stinton leans almost exclusively on Neil Irish’s designs to make that case, and then rather leaves the case unspoken.