Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Librettist: Lorenzo Da Ponte

Director: Phelim McDermott

Conductor: Dinis Sousa

This production dates from 2014 and has been revived several times. Musically, it is very fine. In the pit, Dinis Sousa ensures that every single nuance and detail of Mozart’s magnificent score is clearly heard.

Da Ponte’s plot presents two couples in love. Then a waggish friend of the men cynically bets them that if tempted, their girlfriends wouldn’t remain faithful. In order to test this, they fake leaving for the army but actually disguise themselves and work on the women with the connivance of a cheeky maid. Of course, it all works out in the end.

Unusually for Mozart, Così is a six-hander with very brief and infrequent appearances of a small chorus. All six singers are strong, and there is some delightful duet, trio and quartet work. Lucy Crowe, however, is outstanding as Fiordilgi. She has an unusually wide range and packs emotion into dramatic drops – especially in the long, well-sustained Far Away a Man is Sighing with some sublime horn playing beneath her.  And Ailish Tynan shines as the mischievous, knowing chambermaid.

Because this is ENO, an English translation by Jeremy Sams is used, and it’s witty with a hint of WS Gilbert: “I know two guys with their eyes on the prize”. It’s accessible, but there’s a pay-off in that, as always with translation, the words don’t always sit happily with the rise and fall of the music.

Less successful is the overall concept. The setting is a seaside town motel probably in the 1950s. Some scenes take place on the promenade looking out to sea. Tom Pye’s elaborate set includes carousel horses, swan pedaloes, illuminated heart-shaped archways and a balloon which lifts, so there’s plenty of colourful romance.

Nearby is a circus, and this is where the production falters. The cast includes twelve circus performers, in various sizes, as a non-singing ensemble (they do a lot of scene shifting), and they’re good at what they do. The trouble is that it’s distracting. If you put a spectacular circus skills display centre stage during a key duet, then no one in the audience is going to listen to the music.

Even the overture is ruined by stage business as the circus people emerge from a trunk and race about with placards announcing what the opera is about. It means that the audience laughs and applauds over the music, which is hardly heard.

Runs until 21 February 2026