"The music says it all. Mozart is cool." So said the self-confessed "opera ignoramus" Doris Dörrie before she grabbed hold of one of the sacred cows of the operatic repertoire and transformed it into a "hippie musical". Mozart's Così fan tutte ("Thus Do They All") was first staged in Vienna in 1790; it is a timeless opera, one that in fact became increasingly popular in the twentieth century as accusations of its triviality were replaced by greater recognition of its depths. Mozart's delight in juggling the comic and the serious is on full display here, and the opera's adaptability is proof of it's strength. Under the motto "To cheat on your partner or not, that is the question", Dörrie stamped an originality on the work which impressed even the sceptical critics at its première in 2001.

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