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April 5, 2024
EVANSTON, Ill. --- Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte,” a lively comic opera that tests the ties of love, will conclude Northwestern University’s 2013-14 opera season in late May.
Presented by the Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music, the spring 2014 production will be directed by Artist-in-Residence Michael M. Ehrman, the Bienen School’s director of opera, and guest conducted by Northwestern alumnus Emanuele Andrizzi.
All performances will take place in Cahn Auditorium, 600 Emerson St., on Northwestern’s Evanston campus. The production will be staged at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 22; 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 23; 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 24; and 3 p.m. Sunday, May 25. Tickets are $20 for the general public and $8 for students with valid IDs.
Interested viewers worldwide can view a 7:30 p.m. Central Daylight Time (CDT) live webcast of the May 24 performance at www.pickstaiger.org/webcasts.
Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte” (which loosely translated means “Thus Do They All”) is a two-act Italian-language opera that was first performed in Vienna in 1790. The libretto was written by Venetian opera librettist and poet Lorenzo Da Ponte, who also wrote the librettos for two other well-known Mozart operas -- “Le nozze di Figaro” (“The Marriage of Figaro”) and “Don Giovanni.” Featuring Northwestern students from the Bienen School’s voice and opera program, the production will be performed in Italian with English supertitles.
“Cosi fan tutte” tells the story of two young officers in Naples who agree to a wager with an old philosopher who is confident he can prove that the officers’ lovers are fickle women. The two soldiers pretend to have been called off to war, disguise their identities, and thus begins the test of the women’s fidelity in this drama/farce.
Ehrman has extensive experience as both an opera director and educator. Among his credits are critically acclaimed productions at the Houston Grand Opera, Greater Miami Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Minnesota Opera, Chautauqua Opera and Chicago Opera Theater. Ehrman has staged more than 20 productions for Colorado’s Central City Opera, where he is the director of the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Artists Training Program, including the 50th anniversary production of the “Ballad of Baby Doe” and the world premiere of Henry Mollicone’s “Gabriel’s Daughter.” He also directed Britten’s opera “Noye’s Fludde” (“Noah’s Flood”) for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
In recent years, Andrizzi has conducted operatic and symphonic programs with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Orchestra della Citta di Ravenna, New Philharmonic Orchestra, Chicago Opera Vanguard, and the Cervantes Orchestra, among others. He also has partnered with some of the world’s finest opera theaters, including the Los Angeles Opera, the Dallas Opera and Rome’s Opera Theater. He earned a doctorate in orchestral conducting at Northwestern University.
For more information, call the Pick-Staiger Concert Office at (847) 491-5441 or visit www.pickstaiger.org. To order tickets call the Pick-Staiger Ticket Office at (847) 467-4000 or visit www.pickstaiger.org.
