Florida Opera Theater hired me to create a poster image for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart‘s Cosi Fan Tutti. The title roughly translated means, thus do they all or more commonly, all women are like that. Two sisters are engaged to two soldiers. The soldiers meet an old philosopher in a pub and when the soldiers brag of their fiance’s faithfulness, the philosopher wagers a bet that the women aren’t as faithful as the soldiers claim.
The philosopher proclaims that the soldiers have been called away to battle. The sisters are devastated and proclaim their steadfast love. The soldiers however return dressed as exotic Albanian bachelors and each woos the others fiance. One sister succumbs rather quickly while the other slowly falls in love. This thematic device of fiance swapping was commonly used in Mozart’s day.
This stage inside the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts was surprisingly small. The Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra had supplied a hand full of musicians who performed in the wings at stage left. Having seen several productions as I researched the poster, I was quite familiar with the story which allowed me the freedom to ignore the subtitle translations projected above the stage. Being in a crowded audience made sketching a challenge since it would be distracting to illuminate the sketch. When I squeezed one of my water brushes, it broke and became a water cannon. It shot at Terry by mistake.
Cosi was a lighthearted comic opera that is easy to digest even for a novice opera fan.