The Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía premieres Così fan tutte, by Mozart

Valencia (27-2-09). The Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía premieres tomorrow, Saturday the 28th, at 8pm, Così fan tutte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, conducted by maestro Tomáš Netopil, recently appointed musical director of the National Theatre of Prague.
Così fan tutte is a Glyndebourne Festival Opera production, directed by Nicholas Hytner. The cast features leading singers such as Barbara Frittoli as Fiordiligi, Nino Surguladze as Dorabella, Joel Prieto as Ferrando, Joan Martín-Royo as Guglielmo, Isabel Bayrakdarian as Despina, and Natale De Carolis as Don Alfonso.

Così fan tutte is set in Naples and its plot revolves around the testing of women's infidelity. With this comic opera, the Palau de les Arts completes the trilogy on which Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte collaborated: Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte.

Music director Tomáš Netopil has conducted productions of Idomeneo, La finta giardiniera, Salome in concert, and Kat'a Kabanová at the National Theatre in Prague. He will also conduct Samson et Dalila at the Vlaamse Opera. At the Bavarian State Opera, he led a new production of Doktor Faust, which opened the Munich Opera Festival. He will also conduct Le nozze di Figaro in Munich and at the Semperoper Dresden, and will make his debuts with the Israel Philharmonic and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

The soprano, Barbara Frittoli, enjoys great international prestige and performs in the main theaters of the world. Among the opera titles that have characterized his career are Le nozze di Figaro (Contessa), Così fan tutte (Fiordiligi), Don Giovanni (Donna Elvira), Otello ( Desdemona), La Bohème (Mimì), Carmen (Micaela), Turandot (Liù), Mitridate re di Ponto (Sifare), Falstaff (Alice), Simon Boccanegra (Amelia), Faust (Marguerite), Luisa Miller or Il trovatore (Leonora).

His activity as a concert performer is also brilliant and intense. He has collaborated with the most prestigious orchestras (Berlin, Vienna and La Scala Philharmonic Orchestras, and Boston and Chicago Symphony Orchestras), conducted by great conductors, including Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Zubin Mehta, Valery Gergiev and Gianandrea Noseda.

Nino Surguladze (Dorabella) joined the La Scala Academy in 2001 and has since performed in productions of Salome, Boris Godunov, Oberto, L'italiana in Algeri, and Ugo, conte di Parigi. He has also worked with Riccardo Muti. He recently made his US debut in Eugene Onegin and has sung Ariodante in Frankfurt, Carmen in Bari, Graz, and Naples, and Die lustige Witwe at La Scala. Future engagements include Carmen in Bologna, Barcelona, and San Diego; Così fan tutte at Suntory Hall in Tokyo and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden; and a return to La Scala in Faust.

Joel Prieto (Ferrando) is the winner of the Operalia-Plácido Domingo Competition (2008) held in Quebec, where he also won the special zarzuela prize and the CulturArte prize. He was a member of the Atelier Lyrique de Paris before being engaged by the Deutsche Oper Berlin. At the Palau de les Arts, he sang in L'arbore di Diana (Silvio) by Martín i Soler, conducted by Ruben Dubrovsky, to great acclaim.

Joan Martín-Royo (Guglielmo). His operatic repertoire includes titles such as Il viaggio a Reims (Campoamor and Monnaie theaters in Brussels), L'occasione fa il ladro (Liceu), La Cenerentola (Carlo Felice and Liceu theaters), La pietra del paragone (Regio theaters in Parma and Châtelet in Paris), Don Giovanni (Monte-Carlo and Oviedo) and Così fan tutte (Champs Élysées), among others.

Natale De Carolis (Don Alfonso). Among his most recent engagements are La Cenerentola and Don Giovanni in Palermo; Manon, Don Giovanni, Werther and L'elisir d'amore in Tokyo; Così fan tutte at the Salzburg Festival, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Detroit Opera and in Cagliari; L'elisir d'amore at the Staatsoper unter den Linden in Berlin.

Parallel activities

To mark the premiere of Così fan tutte, the Palau de les Arts has programmed a series of parallel activities. This Friday, the 28th, at 8:00 p.m., in the Saló del Túria, a lecture entitled "Così fan tutte: Word and Music" will be given by music critic Andrés Moreno Mengíbar. In addition, on March 2nd and 3rd, the Palau de les Arts has scheduled staged readings, in Spanish, of the libretto of Così fan tutte by Lorenzo Da Ponte, while on March 3rd, 4th, and 5th, educational performances of the same reading will be offered for student audiences. This activity will allow students to deepen their understanding of all aspects of staged readings, with the support of a teaching guide provided by the Palau de les Arts.