Mixed Feelings

The 2015-16 symphonic season of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia concluded with two non-subscription concert performances of Così fan tutte, the Mozart / Da Ponte dramma giocoso. The opera had been conceived for Vienna's Burgtheater, an elegant small setting still in use mostly for plays; it seats an audience of some six to eight hundred as against the nearly three thousand that can be accommodated in the huge Sala Santa Cecilia. Thus, the orchestra and the chorus were much larger than those indicated in the original score. Semyon Bychkov was the conductor; he is mostly known for his effective and strong direction of Verdi and Russian composers...