Latest news with #DonAlfonso
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Detroit production of Mozart opera turns its female characters into automatons
DETROIT (AP) — Audiences at the Detroit Opera House expecting their performance of 'Cosi fan tutte" to begin with the overture may be surprised to hear instead a product launch from a tech company CEO. It's Mozart meets Artificial Intelligence, in the latest mind-bending production by Yuval Sharon, the company's adventurous artistic director. The opera, first performed in 1790, was the last of three collaborations between Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, and despite its sublime music it has proved the least popular. That's due In part to the work's uneasy mix of light-hearted farce and the cynical worldview it seems to endorse. Even the title, which translates as 'Women are Like That,' suggests a misogyny that is openly expressed by one of its main characters, Don Alfonso. But Sharon rejects the idea that the opera itself is meant to demean women. 'It's going too far to call Mozart a feminist,' he said. 'But when I listen to the music, it seems to me he doesn't want us to agree with Don Alfonso. He and Da Ponte can't possibly want us to take half the population of humanity and constantly denigrate it.' Instead, Sharon believes, the collaborators are 'representing a character and perspective that might actually not be the perspective we're meant to sympathize with.' In the opera, Don Alfonso, a jaded philosopher, bets two young friends that, given the opportunity, their girlfriends, Fiordiligi and Dorabella, will prove unfaithful. The men switch identities, adopt disguises, and each pursues his friend's sweetheart. Eventually both women succumb to their new suitors. Don Alfonso as AI entrepreneur Sharon's production turns Alfonso into the head of an AI company called SoulSync. Under his guidance the younger men have created two female automatons (Alfonso doesn't like the term robots) designed to be 'perfect companions.' This concept of Alfonso as a soulless tech guru may sound far-fetched, but Sharon insists it's not so far from the truth. 'He's actually a replica of what we see in the tech industry,' Sharon said. 'There's a messianic belief that we must transcend our own humanity and that AI is making up for all the terrible ways we behave. People really do believe that the future of humanity is robotic.' Thomas Lehman, a baritone who is singing the role of one of the lovers, Guglielmo, in his fourth production of the work, thinks Sharon is 'taking the story and turning it upside down in the right ways. 'The original libretto leans heavily toward the men,' he said. 'Yuval has found a way to give the women the strength they deserve, to make it a level playing field.' Mezzo-soprano Emily Fons, who is portraying Dorabella for the third time, sees the updating as part of a broader movement of 'trying to figure out how to take pieces that are old and do something new.' The automatons may be programmed to act a certain way, but 'we're all programmed to some extent,' she said. 'What speaks to me is how they learn to feel things and take those feelings to have a say in what happens next.' Sharon said that's exactly what he's aiming for. The women 'start out incredibly mechanical and become much more human in a way,' he said. 'As if we're really watching their consciousness and their emotional life develop before our eyes.' The men, on the other hand, increasingly reveal their limitations and become less interesting as the opera progresses. What up with the magnet? The notion of humans as machines is actually embedded in the opera as Mozart and Da Ponte wrote it — something Sharon said he first realized while attending a performance years ago. 'I was watching a traditional production, very crinoline, hoop skirts, big dresses, lots of buffoonery. I was quite bored,' he recalled. 'And then we get to the Act I finale and suddenly there's this magnet. And I thought, what's up with that?' What was up was a medical treatment advanced by Franz Mesmer, an 18th century German physician who was a friend of Mozart and whose name has given rise to the term 'mesmerism.' He believed that the human body contained metals that could be realigned by moving a magnet over the skin. In the opera, a character named Despina poses as a physician and uses a magnet to 'cure' the two suitors who have pretended to swallow poison. Though the production, which opens April 5 for three performances, raises serious questions about the use of AI, Sharon has made sure to keep the tone light. And he's built in some twists and turns of his own devising to take the audience by surprise. That's why the plot summary in the written program ends abruptly after Act 1. In place of the remainder of the story there's just this note: 'The director has intentionally withheld a synopsis for Act II to avoid spoilers. Enjoy the drama as it unfolds.'
The Independent
01-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Detroit production of Mozart opera turns its female characters into automatons
Audiences at the Detroit Opera House expecting their performance of 'Cosi fan tutte" to begin with the overture may be surprised to hear instead a product launch from a tech company CEO. It's Mozart meets Artificial Intelligence, in the latest mind-bending production by Yuval Sharon, the company's adventurous artistic director. The opera, first performed in 1790, was the last of three collaborations between Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, and despite its sublime music it has proved the least popular. That's due In part to the work's uneasy mix of light-hearted farce and the cynical worldview it seems to endorse. Even the title, which translates as 'Women are Like That,' suggests a misogyny that is openly expressed by one of its main characters, Don Alfonso. But Sharon rejects the idea that the opera itself is meant to demean women. 'It's going too far to call Mozart a feminist,' he said. 'But when I listen to the music, it seems to me he doesn't want us to agree with Don Alfonso. He and Da Ponte can't possibly want us to take half the population of humanity and constantly denigrate it.' Instead, Sharon believes, the collaborators are 'representing a character and perspective that might actually not be the perspective we're meant to sympathize with.' In the opera, Don Alfonso, a jaded philosopher, bets two young friends that, given the opportunity, their girlfriends, Fiordiligi and Dorabella, will prove unfaithful. The men switch identities, adopt disguises, and each pursues his friend's sweetheart. Eventually both women succumb to their new suitors. Don Alfonso as AI entrepreneur Sharon's production turns Alfonso into the head of an AI company called SoulSync. Under his guidance the younger men have created two female automatons (Alfonso doesn't like the term robots) designed to be 'perfect companions.' This concept of Alfonso as a soulless tech guru may sound far-fetched, but Sharon insists it's not so far from the truth. 'He's actually a replica of what we see in the tech industry,' Sharon said. 'There's a messianic belief that we must transcend our own humanity and that AI is making up for all the terrible ways we behave. People really do believe that the future of humanity is robotic.' Thomas Lehman, a baritone who is singing the role of one of the lovers, Guglielmo, in his fourth production of the work, thinks Sharon is 'taking the story and turning it upside down in the right ways. 'The original libretto leans heavily toward the men,' he said. 'Yuval has found a way to give the women the strength they deserve, to make it a level playing field.' Mezzo-soprano Emily Fons, who is portraying Dorabella for the third time, sees the updating as part of a broader movement of 'trying to figure out how to take pieces that are old and do something new.' The automatons may be programmed to act a certain way, but 'we're all programmed to some extent,' she said. 'What speaks to me is how they learn to feel things and take those feelings to have a say in what happens next.' Sharon said that's exactly what he's aiming for. The women 'start out incredibly mechanical and become much more human in a way,' he said. 'As if we're really watching their consciousness and their emotional life develop before our eyes.' The men, on the other hand, increasingly reveal their limitations and become less interesting as the opera progresses. What up with the magnet? The notion of humans as machines is actually embedded in the opera as Mozart and Da Ponte wrote it — something Sharon said he first realized while attending a performance years ago. 'I was watching a traditional production, very crinoline, hoop skirts, big dresses, lots of buffoonery. I was quite bored,' he recalled. 'And then we get to the Act I finale and suddenly there's this magnet. And I thought, what's up with that?' What was up was a medical treatment advanced by Franz Mesmer, an 18th century German physician who was a friend of Mozart and whose name has given rise to the term 'mesmerism.' He believed that the human body contained metals that could be realigned by moving a magnet over the skin. In the opera, a character named Despina poses as a physician and uses a magnet to 'cure' the two suitors who have pretended to swallow poison. Though the production, which opens April 5 for three performances, raises serious questions about the use of AI, Sharon has made sure to keep the tone light. And he's built in some twists and turns of his own devising to take the audience by surprise. That's why the plot summary in the written program ends abruptly after Act 1. In place of the remainder of the story there's just this note: 'The director has intentionally withheld a synopsis for Act II to avoid spoilers. Enjoy the drama as it unfolds.'
Associated Press
01-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
Detroit production of Mozart opera turns its female characters into automatons
DETROIT (AP) — Audiences at the Detroit Opera House expecting their performance of 'Cosi fan tutte' to begin with the overture may be surprised to hear instead a product launch from a tech company CEO. It's Mozart meets Artificial Intelligence, in the latest mind-bending production by Yuval Sharon, the company's adventurous artistic director. The opera, first performed in 1790, was the last of three collaborations between Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, and despite its sublime music it has proved the least popular. That's due In part to the work's uneasy mix of light-hearted farce and the cynical worldview it seems to endorse. Even the title, which translates as 'Women are Like That,' suggests a misogyny that is openly expressed by one of its main characters, Don Alfonso. But Sharon rejects the idea that the opera itself is meant to demean women. 'It's going too far to call Mozart a feminist,' he said. 'But when I listen to the music, it seems to me he doesn't want us to agree with Don Alfonso. He and Da Ponte can't possibly want us to take half the population of humanity and constantly denigrate it.' Instead, Sharon believes, the collaborators are 'representing a character and perspective that might actually not be the perspective we're meant to sympathize with.' In the opera, Don Alfonso, a jaded philosopher, bets two young friends that, given the opportunity, their girlfriends, Fiordiligi and Dorabella, will prove unfaithful. The men switch identities, adopt disguises, and each pursues his friend's sweetheart. Eventually both women succumb to their new suitors. Don Alfonso as AI entrepreneur Sharon's production turns Alfonso into the head of an AI company called SoulSync. Under his guidance the younger men have created two female automatons (Alfonso doesn't like the term robots) designed to be 'perfect companions.' This concept of Alfonso as a soulless tech guru may sound far-fetched, but Sharon insists it's not so far from the truth. 'He's actually a replica of what we see in the tech industry,' Sharon said. 'There's a messianic belief that we must transcend our own humanity and that AI is making up for all the terrible ways we behave. People really do believe that the future of humanity is robotic.' Thomas Lehman, a baritone who is singing the role of one of the lovers, Guglielmo, in his fourth production of the work, thinks Sharon is 'taking the story and turning it upside down in the right ways. 'The original libretto leans heavily toward the men,' he said. 'Yuval has found a way to give the women the strength they deserve, to make it a level playing field.' Mezzo-soprano Emily Fons, who is portraying Dorabella for the third time, sees the updating as part of a broader movement of 'trying to figure out how to take pieces that are old and do something new.' The automatons may be programmed to act a certain way, but 'we're all programmed to some extent,' she said. 'What speaks to me is how they learn to feel things and take those feelings to have a say in what happens next.' Sharon said that's exactly what he's aiming for. The women 'start out incredibly mechanical and become much more human in a way,' he said. 'As if we're really watching their consciousness and their emotional life develop before our eyes.' The men, on the other hand, increasingly reveal their limitations and become less interesting as the opera progresses. What up with the magnet? The notion of humans as machines is actually embedded in the opera as Mozart and Da Ponte wrote it — something Sharon said he first realized while attending a performance years ago. 'I was watching a traditional production, very crinoline, hoop skirts, big dresses, lots of buffoonery. I was quite bored,' he recalled. 'And then we get to the Act I finale and suddenly there's this magnet. And I thought, what's up with that?' What was up was a medical treatment advanced by Franz Mesmer, an 18th century German physician who was a friend of Mozart and whose name has given rise to the term 'mesmerism.' He believed that the human body contained metals that could be realigned by moving a magnet over the skin. In the opera, a character named Despina poses as a physician and uses a magnet to 'cure' the two suitors who have pretended to swallow poison. Though the production, which opens April 5 for three performances, raises serious questions about the use of AI, Sharon has made sure to keep the tone light. And he's built in some twists and turns of his own devising to take the audience by surprise. That's why the plot summary in the written program ends abruptly after Act 1. In place of the remainder of the story there's just this note: 'The director has intentionally withheld a synopsis for Act II to avoid spoilers. Enjoy the drama as it unfolds.'
Los Angeles Times
12-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
L.A. Opera's silly ‘Così fan Tutte' saved by the singing
Absurdly improbable, shockingly cynical, Mozart's 'Così fan Tutte' is populated by downright stupid and manipulative characters. It is also flooded with Mozartian beauty that offers the depth of thought and feeling of the first modern opera. Critic Edward Said spoke of the opera's elimination of memory from the past and from loyalties so that 'only the present is left standing.' James Conlon, the conductor of the production that opened at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Saturday night, proposes on the Los Angeles Opera podcast that 'Così' is not a spiritual Mozart opera but a relevant materialist one. The production by the late director Michael Cavanagh, which comes courtesy of San Francisco Opera, is indeed materialistic. Set at a posh East Coast country club in the late 1930s, the staging is not of the moment or even particularly of that moment. L.A.'s history with 'Così' includes two previous potent productions beginning with Nicholas Hytner's in 1988, a highlight of the company's third season. Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic mounted a stunningly complex production in Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2014. When it comes to materialism, nothing quite beats a 1990 production by Cal State Long Beach given in the Queen's Salon of the Queen Mary. Mozart and his librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte, meant to make us squirm as they uncover our insecurities and the faults in our materialistic facades. Inanely virtuous sisters are engaged to a pair of unrelated, inanely cocky bros. Their infatuations are challenged by a cunning philosopher who persuades the bros to pretend they've been suddenly drafted and to return later in disguise to woo each other's fiancée. The philosopher Don Alfonso wins the bet because, as we are all supposed to know, così fan tutte, women are like that. But Don Alfonso's experiment ultimately illustrates the more radically disquieting truth to a misogynistic 18th century society for whom the opera was written: We are all like that. What makes 'Così' modern is that it underscores just how quickly and radically things can change in a flash. We think we're more enlightened than the Age of Enlightenment — yet look around you. Whom or what can you trust? The challenge of any production of 'Così' is to find the core depth in the vapid lovers, beyond the unbelievable naivete and disguises. For that, Mozart's music becomes the road map for unlocking feelings and for facing the nature of our being. This is not wisdom but an acceptance of human nature that can lead to a transcendence from materialism. The radicalism is that neither composer nor librettist reveals that this actually works. Do the lovers change partners or not? Have they what it takes for a lasting relationship? The jokey San Francisco production, as staged by Shawna Lucey for L.A. Opera following Cavanagh's death a year ago, takes an extreme path. The characters are so farcical in their outlandish country club get-ups that they hardly seem agents for a 'troubling study in power and agency' that the directors suggest in their program note. These are not the magnificent Hollywood of 1930s cinema but silly people doing silly things for laughs with exaggerated reactions more typical of the previous silent movie decade. The silly people, in this case, happen to be fine singers. Conlon supplies grace and, yes, a glowing spirituality, in the orchestra. The hapless loves do awaken some 2 1/2 hours into a 3 1/2-hour performance, becoming more serious, if not that much less superficial. The set (by Erhard Rom) has just enough elegance to it that when the opera begins after the overture, Fiordiligi and Dorabella both have a little trouble settling in musically. Once they do and once we get over their intentionally unflattering costumes (by Constance Hoffman), they are terrific. Mozart takes his time distinguishing the two, who musically mirror each other, but eventually soprano Erica Petrocelli finds a searing intensity as Fiordiligi, while the honeyed mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb displays a hint of welcome larceny as Dorabella. Both become as real as costumes and direction permit. Once tenor Anthony León's feisty Ferrando and baritone Justin Austin' s convivial Guglielmo get past spraying the stage with adrenaline, taking even longer than their fiancées for the essence of the hoax to get through their thick skulls, they too come around to a point. The men test the women, but it is they who are the ones to be less trusted. Don Alfonso and Despina are two superior 'Così' veterans. Rod Gilfry, once a spirited Guglielmo in the company's production more than 30 years ago and a stylishly devilish Don Aflonso in the L.A. Phil production, is here a creepy hotel manager with little sense of purpose. Ana Maria Martínez, an alluring no-nonsense Fiordiligi at 2006 Salzburg Festival, hangs on to some of that allure despite Despina's heavy-handed antics. The L.A. Opera 'Così' is dedicated to a beloved founding board member, Alice Coulombe, whose husband founded Trader Joe's. It might also be dedicated to Robert Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick, who died in September, inspired Coulombe and her cohorts to found Music Center Opera, which became L.A. Opera. As head of the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival, Fitzpatrick cruised L.A. in his BMW with 'Così' playing day and night, saying that if he were killed in a crash, that was the last music he wanted to hear. 'Così' blasted in the background while he was on an early portable phone making arrangements to bring London's Royal Opera to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, which directly led to the creation of a local company at last. 'Così' will forever be in the DNA of L.A. Opera. You may need a microscope to see it in this maladroit production, but you hear it wonderfully. In the elimination of memory, the ears are the last to go.
