Classic Arts NewsMetropolitan Opera’s Così fan tutte, Featuring Tony Winner Kelli O’Hara, Heads to PBSThe Coney Island-set staging will air as part of the Great Performances at the Met series July 29.
By
Ryan McPhee
July 24, 2018
PBS’ Great Performances at the Met series will present the Metropolitan Opera’s recent staging of Così fan tutte July 29 at 12 PM; check local listings.
Serena Malfi, Kelli O'Hara, and Amanda Majeski
Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera
The Phelim McDermott-helmed production, which opened at the New York house in March, starred Tony winner Kelli O'Hara (currently making her West End debut in The King and I) as the scheming maid Despina. The Mozart opera marked her return to the Met following her performance in The Merry Widow opposite Carousel’s Renée Fleming.
The staging transported the comedy from 18th-century Naples to 1950s Coney Island, complete with Ferris wheel and a troupe of carnival performers. “This rehearsal process was coming from a theatrical place of improvisation and really digging into putting our full selves—in body and thought...as opposed to just staying there,” O’Hara previously explained to Playbill.” None of these singers did that; they threw themselves fully into this and were adventures. That is a theatrical thing to do; that's what we do in theatre.”
Joining O’Hara in the cast were Amanda Majeski as Fiordiligi, Serena Malfi as Dorabella, Ben Bliss as Ferrando, Adam Plachetka as Guglielmo, and Chiristopher Maltman as Don Alfonso.
Great Performances at the Met will also air Verdi’s Luisa Miller, starring Sonya Yoncheva, Piotr Beczala, and Plácido Domingo, August 12. Both titles were filmed as part of the Met’s Live in HD series.
Next year, Carnegie Hall's house band will perform Bernstein’s “Kaddish” Symphony, unfinished works by Schubert, and the final concert of Conductor Bernard Labadie.
