A Controversial Così

Something strange happened at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma on 18 January 2017 where I sat in row 15 seat 6. Normally, Teatro dell'Opera audiences are quite tame and quiet, and after more than three and half hours of performance, they would then run to the cloakroom, all the more on a freezing night, to reach a taxi or the underground. Instead, when the curtain closed on the last notes of the new production of Mozart's Così fan tutte, there were almost ten minutes of applause for the conductor, the soloists, the chorus and the orchestra. This was followed by a full battery of boos for stage director Graham Vick and his collaborators for stage setting and costumes...