Covid fan tutte

This is an unmissable treat if you are an opera lover. It's a brilliant comic adaptation, using the music of Mozart's 'Cosi fan tutte', plus lyrics which depict the crazy disruption and disorientation of the first few months of the global pandemic lockdown.

Most of the opera sparkles in its cleverness and wonderful humor. There's really not a dull moment in it until possibly the finale, which isn't quite as funny as the rest of the opera. Still, for something cooked up, written, rehearsed, and fully professionally produced within a matter of just a few months, it's quite breathtakingly ingenious.

Karita Mattila gives a wonderful performance, first in a comedic parody of her own life stuck in Finland instead of doing her scheduled opera tours, and then as "Despina", whose character is given the broadest of the satires. The rest of the singers perform quite well indeed. So it's a treat both comedy-wise and singing-wise. And it is conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen.