Così fan tutte - Salzburg Festival 2026 - Così fan tutte - Salzburger Festspiele 2026

Description

Revival of the production of Così fan tutte directed by Christof Loy at the 2026 Salzburg Festival.
The production was originally presented at the 2020 Salzburg Festival, amidst the Covid pandemic, which necessitated adjustments to the staging and performances. It was revived the following year in the form originally envisioned by the director. The Salzburg Festival is bringing it back once more in August 2026.

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Christof Loy’s staging of Così fan tutte, returning to the Salzburg Festival in 2026, offers an interpretation of Mozart’s masterpiece that is both elegant and dizzying. The plot is never treated merely as a comedy of disguise, but rather as an experience of disillusionment. Everything seems to stem from a slight shift in reality, where love proves as unstable as a theatrical set.

Johannes Leiacker’s set design (a vast white expanse) complements this sense of unease with eloquent restraint. It makes no attempt to illustrate the action heavy-handedly; instead, it gives voice to its fragility, as if the characters were moving through a mental space – a place of transition where certainties crumble. Barbara Drosihn’s costumes and Olaf Winter’s lighting contribute to this psychological precision: nothing distracts from the intimate drama; everything leads to the undeniable reality of wavering hearts.

Returning to the podium, just as she did for the original Salzburg run, Joana Mallwitz is expected to once again imbue the work with a fluid pulse, attentive to both the nuances of the text and the natural breathing of the vocal lines. The conductor elicits a musical soundscape that does not judge the characters but envelops them in a shifting, almost fraternal clarity. For the performances on August 22 and 29, Christoph Koncz takes over, tasked with continuing this interpretation in the same spirit of attentive listening and musical theater. The cast lends this revival a compelling depth. Elsa Dreisig reprises the role of Fiordiligi, embodying the tension between professed fidelity and inner turmoil; her vocal and dramatic presence makes palpable the emotional rift of a character discovering she is less invulnerable than she once believed. Victoria Karkacheva takes on the role of Dorabella, and her more direct sensuality, portraying a heroine driven as much by instinct as by emotional upheaval.

Opposite them, Andrè Schuen once again imbues Guglielmo with a wounded nobility and an irony that ultimately turns against him, while Bogdan Volkov approaches Ferrando with the aim of revealing a luminous sensitivity, caught in the very vulnerability of his romantic ideal. Lea Desandre returns as Despina, lending the maid a sharp intelligence and an almost nonchalant wit that never compromises the precision of her characterization. Finally, Johannes Martin Kränzle returns as Don Alfonso, asserting an ambiguous authority, at once philosophical and playful, as if he were the master of the game, even while being overtaken by his own certainties.

This Salzburg revival promises a Così fan tutte that is not merely a comedy about inconstancy, but a work exploring the shifting nature of human emotion. Beneath the theatrical elegance lies a wounded heart; beneath the banter, a deeper understanding of the human condition.

Further information is available on the Festival’s official website.