At the Salzburg Festival, director Christof Loy & a strong cast demonstrate that less is more in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte

Mozart: Cosi fan tutte – Lea Desandre, Victoria Karkacheva, Elsa Dreisig, Johannes Martin Kränzle, Andrè Schuen, Bogdan Volkov – Salzburg Festival (Photo: Monika Rittershaus)

Mozart: Cosi fan tutte; Elsa Dreisig, Victoria Karkacheva, Bogdan Volkov, Andrè Schuen, Lea Desdandre, Johannes Martin Kränzle, dir: Christof Loy, Angelika Prokopp Sommerakademie der Wiener Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker, cond: Joana Mallwitz; Salzburg Festival at the Grosses Festspielhaus
Reviewed 6 August 2026

I have sometimes found Christof Loy’s work to be too cerebral, but here his stripped down production worked superbly, releasing the combined talents of a strong cast to create something rather special

After the hyper-busy staging of Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims the previous night [see my review], Thursday 6 August saw a production of Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte at the Salzburg Festival in the Grosses Festspielhaus that was in complete contrast. Christof Loy‘s new production was a restudied version of his 2020 COVID-era Cost fan tutte (in a version trimmed to well under three hours). The new production saw the 2020 cuts reversed and the staging reconsidered.

Joana Mallwitz conducted the Angelika Prokopp Sommerakademie der Wiener Philharmoniker alongside members of the Wiener Philharmoniker. Elsa Dreisig was Fiordiligi, Victoria Karkacheva was Dorabella, Bogdan Volkov was Ferrando, Andrè Schuen was Guglielmo, Lea Desdandre was Despina, and Johannes Martin Kränzle was Don Alfonso. Sets were by Johannes Leiacker, costumes by Barbara Drosihn and lighting by Olaf Winter.

Christof Loy conceived the production for the Grosses Festspielhaus, ‘a performance on this gigantic stage that nevertheless manages to be very intimate’ as Loy described it in the programme book. ‘It dispenses with all external aids: there are only two doors, the characters, the music … The performers are far closer to the audience.’

Mozart: Cosi fan tutte – Bogdan Volkov, Andrè Schuen – Salzburg Festival (Photo: Monika Rittershaus)

The playing area was relatively narrow with steps leading down into the orchestra pit. Costumes were plain black and modern in style, and whilst Fiordiligi and Dorabella’s shoes were relatively ordinary black court shoes, I am assured that Despina’s shoes were something rather special. When the men were in disguise they were in colour, no silly wigs or costumes here.

Loy takes Cosi fan tutte seriously, there was no supposedly clever setting, no local colour and notably there was no attempt to ‘fix’ the opera’s dramaturgy. He paid Mozart and da Ponte the compliment of taking the work seriously. Any comedy came from character and situation. And Loy does not see the work as fundamentally misogynistic, for him it is more a critique of male self image. And by the end of the piece it was clear that rather than choosing one man or the other, though the sisters ended with the ‘correct’ man, there was something in the attraction to the ‘other’.

The staging was very much conceived of as a journey, starting all lightness and then, from the beginning of Act Two, crossing a boundary in the wonderful dialogue between the sisters as they dared to consider dalliance with the visitors. By the conclusion, having come through real darkness, the end was definitely not in the beginning.

Mozart: Cosi fan tutte – Elsa Dreisig, Victoria Karkacheva – Salzburg Festival (Photo: Monika Rittershaus)

Elsa Dreisig and Victoria Karkacheva were convincing as sisters, differentiated yet similar, their responses an extension of the other. There was no false playing up of differences here, Dreisig’s Fiordiligi could be as playful as Karkacheva’s Dorabella and both were serious. That said, Dreisig’s two arias were the core of the drama. Her voice was lithe with a fine sense of line yet remarkable intensity. ‘Come scoglio’ was classical in structure and serious in intensity, whilst her aria in Act To was one of the lynch pins of the drama. Here, one of Loy’s staging ‘tricks’ came to the fore, his way of keeping characters on stage. So as Dreisig’s Fiordiligi worked through her feelings in the intense aria, she was watched by Volkov’s Ferrando, and Karkacheva’s Dorabella stared at him intently before turning to Schuen’s Guglielmo. It sounds contrived, but in this theatre with these performers it worked.

Karkacheva as Dorabella was the perfect foil. Her first aria lighter and then in Act Two her aria about Cupid started light but developed real fierceness. This was no bubbly airhead, but a woman intrigued by possibilities and aware.

The two men were deliberately contrasting, the singers falling naturally into the categories of one fair, one dark. Whilst Volkov and Schuen played this up, the also acted in concert, creating the sort of ridiculous laddish behaviour that felt right.

Mozart: Cosi fan tutte – Elsa Dreisig, Lea Desandre, Victoria Karkacheva – Salzburg Festival (Photo: Monika Rittershaus)

Volkov’s account of ‘Un aura amorosa’ was beautifully sung. His lyric tenor has surprising depth to it, yet the aria felt a moment out of time. In his Act Two aria he worked through all the heartache and anger, the result was powerful and by the end leaving him and us shell-shocked. For Loy, this aria represents the complex of emotions that Ferrando has to deal with as he realises that the though he is jealous because his fiancee is with another man, he is indeed in love with another woman.

Schuen’s Guglielmo had a suavity to him that came out in moments like his Act Two duet with Karkacheva’s Dorabella when the sheer beauty of Schuen’s tone would have seduced anyone. There was complexity and anger too, both his arias allowed Schuen to show his remarkable range. Then as Act Two developed, a real feeling of viciousness appeared too,

It says something for the skill and intensity of the performers that the ending had us in the edge of our seats, not knowing what the ultimate resolution might be. And even though we had the ‘correct’ line up at the end, Loy ensured that we were left with a slight question. And you wondered, had these mean actually learned anything at all.

Mozart: Cosi fan tutte – Bogdan Volkov, Andrè Schuen, Johannes Martin Kränzle – Salzburg Festival (Photo: Monika Rittershaus)

Johannes Martin Kränzle as Don Alfonso and Lea Desandre as Despina brought the real element of comedy to the work, yet in all seriousness. Desandre made a youthful, rather pert Despina, one fond of ‘answering back’ yet with some real wisdom in life-lessons. Desandre is clearly a gifted comedian and both her medico and notary were comic tour-de-force which ensured the mood of the opera was varied. Kränzle’s Don Alfonso began as an engaging know-all, the who thing being merely a game, one that the two men happily participate in, with the end never in doubt. The intensity of feeling in Act Two upset this and Kränzle made Don Alfonso seem rather cast adrift. A suggestion of by-play between Don Alfonso and Despina was most definitely more in his mind than hers.

“I want to release the characters from any concrete context so that one can perceive them as human beings, not historical figures from 18th century Naples”, Christof Loy in the programme book.

Having recently seen productions of Cosi fan tutte that set the opera in the context of 20th century package tours to Naples (Opera Holland Park) or 18th century Naples with a view to redressing the balance between women and men (the Grange Festival), or even ENO’s circus-themed production, it was a relief to find Loy having no axe to grind in this respect. The focus simply on character paid dividends here, and the opera was rendered with far greater intimacy and intensity than I have experienced in far smaller theatres.

There was no stage role for the chorus (the Concert Choir of the Vienna State Opera Chorus), they remained unseen throughout.

Pedro Beriso provided decorative forte-piano recitatives, including a few vamp-till-ready moments. Yet the instrument felt underpowered for the space and there were moments when you wished for a stronger underpinning of the voices. I notice he played in some accompanied recitatives, but whilst I could see his fingers moving, there was little to be heard alongside the orchestra.

From the first notes of the overture, sharp, strong chords and vivid incisive scurrying, it was clear that Joana Mallwitz’s approach took no prisoners. She drew a fine performance indeed from the orchestra yet it never felt performative and the speeds and shaping of the music were organic.

Mozart: Cosi fan tutte – Lea Desandre, Victoria Karkacheva, Bogdan Volkov, Elsa Dreisig, Andrè Schuen, Johannes Martin Kränzle – Salzburg Festival (Photo: Monika Rittershaus)

I have sometimes found Christof Loy’s work to be too cerebral but here his thought experiment with Cos fan tutte worked superbly, releasing the combined talents of a strong cast to create something rather special.