Washburn’s Opera Studio presents Cosi fan tutte, a Mozart opera about a cynical bet on female fidelity, at Neese Gray Theatre on Sunday at 2 p.m. Joseph DeSota, assistant professor of music, served as the stage director for the production. 

DeSota shared excitement about having all attendees present for the spring production of Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte. He also described the performance. 

“Our opera studio has collaborated with two other groups on campus to produce this production, our Washburn University orchestra … and also our Washburn chorale,” DeSota said.

DeSota shared they were excited to present the Mozart opera for several reasons, noting that it came out in 1790, the year before Mozart’s death, and was his final Italian opera. He explained that the performance is sung in Italian. 

DeSota also described the work as an interesting piece in Mozart’s output, calling it his second-to-last opera and his last collaboration with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, with whom he created comedic works that blend language and music. The opera incorporated musical elements from different periods of Mozart’s style, including Baroque influences and more experimental techniques from his later years. 

Iris Gaul, senior vocal performance and psychology major, performed the role of Despina in this opera. Gaul described how she approached her character in this performance. 

“It is a lot like caffeine beforehand,” Gaul said. “She’s a very high energy character, and it’s been a very long […] week, so a lot of caffeine. And then I kind of go backstage. I jumped around a lot, but prepping, right before the show started… I do a couple different voices in the show as the different characters I play. So I listen to a few different people just to get some ideas.”

Gaul shared that this is the first time they have performed a full production in a foreign language, as they have almost always performed in English before. She explained that learning all the words, matching them to the characters, and understanding their meanings required a lot of work. 

Gaul noted that no one in the cast speaks Italian except Raffaele Cipriano, the orchestra director, who helps with pronunciation and understanding the text. As a non-native Italian speaker, she said it took a great deal of effort to memorize the language and ensure she was expressing it correctly.

Matthew Rice, sophomore music education and music performance major, played the role of Guglielmo. Rice described his overall performance.

“That’s great. We all really came together at the end. It was a struggle, but we all came together, and it was great,” Rice said. 

Rice also described how he connected with the audience while performing in Italian.

“You really have to learn exactly what the words mean and what you’re saying, not just like the general mean, just like the individual words,” Rice said. “And then by that, you can look an audience member in the eye and speak and know exactly what you’re saying.”

At the end of the event, all the performers were in the theater lobby, where they met with the audience.

Students who want to major or minor in music must audition to be accepted into the music department. The same audition is used for both program admission and scholarship consideration. Scholarships and financial awards are given based on the quality of the audition. Current students and high school seniors can audition on scheduled scholarship audition dates. To set up an audition or get more information, contact DeSota at [email protected].

Edited by Stuti Khadka