
Wolfgang Mozart
27 Feb–28 Feb 2026
Semi-staged Concert of Così fan tutte
At The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester
Following the theme of fiancée swapping, a longstanding plot device used famously by Shakespeare in The Taming of the Shrew, Così fan tutte follows a pair of couples (Ferrando and Dorabella, & Guglielmo and Fiordiligi).
The men accept a wager from Don Alfonso that their fiancées will be faithful to them, and orchestrate a plot to test that hypothesis: they will be ‘called away to war’, but will in reality disguise themselves and attempt to woo each other’s bride-to-be.
What follows is a typically farcical opera buffa plot, as problem after problem presents itself, each more contrived than the last.