Seductive Opera Flirts Its Way To A Town Near You!

4 May 2004

Seductive Opera Flirts Its Way To A Town Near You!

Handle with Care! New Zealand Post postie, Fay Kingham, "delivers" Dorabella (Joanne Cole) to rehearsals for the NZ Post- Opera for All Cosi Fan Tutte Tour.]

Love is put to the ultimate test in Mozart's deliciously flirtatious opera, COSI FAN TUTTE - The NBR New Zealand Opera's new touring production, taking to the road this winter.

A musical masterpiece of deception, temptation and seduction, Cosi Fan Tutte will be "delivered" to 14 centres nationwide by this country's largest professional opera company, thanks to season sponsors New Zealand Post (subs 3 May 2004) and The Southern Trust.

The New Zealand Post - Opera for All Cosi Fan Tutte tour will charm audiences in Rotorua, Gisborne, Tauranga, Auckland, North Shore, Hamilton, New Plymouth, Wanganui, Palmerston North, Blenheim, Nelson, Greymouth, Wellington and Hawke's Bay during June, July and August.

The same vibrant team who made The Barber of Seville such a hit - director Carmel Carroll, conductor Michael Vinten and designers John Parker and Elizabeth Whiting - come together again with an energetic and talented Australasian opera cast and a live chamber orchestra. Among the singers are some of New Zealand's rising young opera stars - Benjamin Fifita Makisi, Andrew Conley, Katherine Wiles, Zan McKendree-Wright, Stephanie Acraman, Joanne Cole and Brendon Mercer. Seasoned performers include Terry Barry, Tim du Fore, David Hibbard, Douglas McNicol and Carla Parry. Australian singer, Emma Pearson, fresh from The Australian Opera Studio, makes her professional opera debut on this tour. Orchestral players from the Auckland Philharmonia and NGC Wellington Sinfonia, will accompany them.

In this new production, fresh but traditional designs from John Parker and Elizabeth Whiting pay homage to a bygone era, echoing the dawn of the age of Romanticism in an 18th-century Naples setting true to Mozart's original. Parker's setting reflects an idealised romantic mood with elegant simplicity. Whiting's costumes include glorious period dresses with elegance and sweep and buccaneer outfits with swashbuckling flair!

Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte is an extraordinary opera - both funny and insightful, it asks an age-old question: how much can you really trust your lover? A light-hearted wager, seeking to find an answer to that question, turns out to have earth-shaking consequences for all concerned.

Two young men, boastfully confident of how faithful their fiancees are, accept a wager to test the women’s fidelity; each will disguise himself and try to seduce the other man’s lover. At first, the women resist the wooing and it’s all very amusing. But soon the two couples find themselves learning a memorable lesson in love. Cosi Fan Tutte is both a sparklingly, tuneful romp and a penetrating look at the games that lovers play. Harmonious and perfectly proportioned, Cosi contains some of Mozart's most appealing and well-known music.

This second opera tour by The NBR New Zealand Opera follows their highly successful The Barber of Seville in 2003, which marked the first nationwide tour by a professional New Zealand opera company for over 20 years and was enjoyed by over 17,500 people across 13 centres.

"Last year following requests from so many people in the regions, we said we'd be back in 2004," says Alex Reedijk, General Director of The NBR New Zealand Opera. "We're delighted to be able to fulfil that promise with Cosi Fan Tutte - a gem of an opera!"

Romantic, flirtatious, seductive - Cosi Fan Tutte is sure to put a sparkle in every lover's eye.

Ends.

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