Così fan tutte

Story

Act I

Ferrando and Guglielmo are friends, each in love with one of two sisters. Alfonso, older, more experienced, and more disillusioned, warns them not to trust women’s fidelity. The two friends disagree: they are convinced that their fiancées, Fiordiligi and Dorabella, would never betray them. In the heat of the argument, Alfonso proposes a wager: within twenty-four hours, he will prove that Fiordiligi and Dorabella are just as unfaithful as any other women. The friends accept the challenge.

Fiordiligi and Dorabella eagerly await seeing Ferrando and Guglielmo again. Alfonso informs them that their lovers have been called to military service and must leave immediately. The sisters bid a desperate farewell to the two men, who, following Alfonso’s plan, pretend to depart for war.

Left alone, the sisters give themselves over to lovesick sorrow. The cunning Despina cannot console them; instead, she lectures them that faithful men do not exist and suggests they quickly find new lovers.

Alfonso enlists Despina’s help, asking her to assist two ‘strangers’ in getting close to Fiordiligi and Dorabella. Despina promptly arranges matters, and the two attractive suitors appear, showering the women with declarations of love. Fiordiligi firmly rejects them, offering convincing proof of female fidelity. Ferrando and Guglielmo believe they have already won the bet, but Despina comes to Alfonso’s aid with a new idea.

The two ‘strangers’ pretend to poison themselves in despair over rejection, which deeply affects the sisters. Disguised as a doctor, Despina revives the ‘dying’ men, who then resume their pursuit of Fiordiligi and Dorabella.

Act II

The next day, Despina continues instructing Fiordiligi and Dorabella on how confident women behave. Her words take effect: Dorabella confesses to her sister that she is attracted to one of the strangers (in reality Guglielmo, Fiordiligi’s partner), and they agree that a little flirtation can do no harm. When the two men arrive, Dorabella yields, while Fiordiligi still struggles against her desires.

Ferrando reacts with jealous anger but refuses to abandon the wager. Despina praises Dorabella for her actions. Fiordiligi, confused by her emotions, eventually also gives in to temptation, falling for the other ‘stranger’ (in reality Ferrando, Dorabella’s partner). Now Guglielmo, too, feels the pain of the game. Alfonso coolly reminds the two wounded lovers of his earlier claim: all women behave this way.

Events spiral beyond control as the sisters prepare for a double wedding with the strangers. But just before signing the marriage contracts, Ferrando and Guglielmo suddenly ‘return’. Alfonso reveals the truth and urges the shocked sisters to reconcile with their disappointed lovers. The two couples thus face a shared although somewhat uncertain future happiness.

INSIGHTS

Così fan tutte, really?
Interview with director Kriszta Székely

In mid-May 2026, a contemporary interpretation of Così fan tutte, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s late comic opera, arrives at the Eiffel Art Studios. Kriszta Székely brings the work closer to today’s audience with young singers, unfolding its deep psychological layers.

Mozart is a peak of the operatic repertoire, where the music defines the framework with great precision. As a director, how much freedom do you have?

In places, with careful thought, you can introduce a bit of irony, even put quotation marks around certain moments of the plot, but you must not go completely against the opera. A director who does not sufficiently respect the music will ultimately lose, and this is especially true of Mozart’s works. From a directing perspective, I consider Così fan tutte a hard nut to crack. The main question for me is how we can present the era we want to speak to, how to interpret the ‘testing’ of love and the motif of deception in today’s context, while also capturing more deeply the inner psychological processes of the characters.

In the 19th century, Così fan tutte was considered immoral; it was rarely performed, and later attempts were made to ‘fix’ it with new librettos. How can it speak meaningfully today?

Two things interest me most in this piece. First, I find the identity crisis the characters undergo: constantly swapping personas in front of each other and themselves is very resonant with how the world functions today. The online space provides an excellent platform for this. People go through many different identities over their lives, trying out styles in taste, clothing, and lifestyle. I feel a strong personal connection to this aspect of the story. Secondly, I want to bring in the dating culture typical of the online world. As everything is revealed by the end of the opera and things fall back into place, in real life too we don’t necessarily have to be afraid of learning everything about another person. Sometimes something truly begins between two people precisely when the walls come down.

The opera presents a rather sharp critique of women, which may seem provocative today. What do you want to convey with this story?

From my perspective, the piece is primarily about the instability of the characters’ identities, including both men and women. We should not sharpen the production into a statement that one gender is like this and the other like that. If we formulate criticism, it must apply to both. What I mainly want to talk about is a sense of lostness. I find it particularly exciting how the characters change, not only through their costumes, but internally as well, as they gradually begin to behave differently. And of course, there is that peculiar, somewhat twisted happy ending at the end of the opera, whose meaning is also worth exploring.

The atmosphere of the Eiffel Art Studios differs from traditional opera houses. How did this influence your staging?

We moved in the direction of the online world, using large projections to evoke its illusionism and trendiness, almost to the point of exaggeration. We juxtapose everyday existence with that image-based, virtual reality in which we now organize and live our daily lives. This concept fits very well with the raw, industrial space of the Eiffel.

How does age shape the interpretation of this story?

I primarily associate this material with youth and the uncertainty characteristic of that stage of life. At this age, one feels there will always be something better, that anything can still happen. Then suddenly, it seems as though possibilities fade away, and one is left alone. This is where the character of Don Alfonso becomes truly interesting: where he is speaking from, what condition drives him to interfere in these young people’s lives. Is it life experience, or a kind of weariness? Or does he simply want to show them that life is not as simple as they think?

The opera is a special challenge for all soloists, both musically and dramatically. How do you best guide the singers?

Singers often long to meet directors who come from outside musical theatre, because they bring a different formal language. I very much enjoy working with opera singers, they have great stamina and are open-minded. Opera itself is an inherently absurd form, after all: the characters sing throughout. Compared to this, stage presence necessarily demands something different. What excites me most is not duplicating what the music already expresses but rather counterpointing it or placing it in a new context. Essentially, I’m interested in pushing these musical ‘excesses’ in another direction.

This interview was conducted by András Várhegyi.