Fidelity, Love, and Mozart

In Opera San Jose‘s production of Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte, soprano Amanda Kingston plays Fiordiligi, one of two sisters whose fidelity is tested and bet on in an effort to show that no woman is faithful. She’s one of several singers making their first appearances as members of OSJ’s resident company this season, with several other plum roles coming up in future months. Cosi fan tutte runs through September 24th at the California Theatre.

There’s more information at the Opera San Jose website.

This was the third collaboration of Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte, after Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro, and its somewhat convoluted story bears a bit of a resemblance to an episode of I Love Lucy: “It’s two teen-aged sisters and they have fallen in love with best-friend soldiers,” Amanda Kingston explains. “The soldiers make a bet with their instructor, Don Alfonso… and Don Alfonso makes the bet with them that women are not faithful. The men create this ploy and say that they’ve been called off to war and they leave and come back as these ridiculous caricatures of Albanian men. And it’s a whole comedic sequence: first the ladies reject them and tell them to leave, and eventually they break down and give in, and Don Alfonso wins the bet, but says ‘You should get married, you do love them.’” This kind of a role is somewhat new for Amanda Kingston: “It has been an absolute blast. I love doing comedy – I end up singing a lot of tragedy, so it’s nice to not be dead at the end, and get some laughs, and have some lighthearded moments. I mean, Cosi is one of those shows that’s full of really gorgeous music and very poignant ideas.” In addition to singing Fiordiligi in Cosi, she’ll also be Magda in Puccini’s La Rondine, and Violetta in Opera San Jose’s upcoming production of La Traviata by Verdi.