Così fan tutte

Conductor Christoph Eschenbach's 2013 Salzburg Festival performance of Mozart's frothy opera—a comedy about two young men who switch fiancées in order to test their fidelity—proves to be a decidedly old-fashioned affair, marked by unusually slow tempos and extremely romantic phrasing, although the Vienna Philharmonic plays with customary finesse. Likewise, Sven-Eric Bechtolf's production is mostly traditional—except for the sauna in which body doubles for the leading ladies bathe at the beginning of the first act, and a curious final twist in which Don Alfonso (architect of the mate swapping) accidentally drinks poison and dies—and the effect is almost like stepping into a time warp back to the 1950s (aside from the much improved sound and visuals). On the singing side, Luca Pisaroni is the standout, bringing a warm but also powerful baritone voice to Guglielmo, while Gerald Finley gives Alfonso an intriguingly nasty edge. The rest—Malin Hartelius (Fiordiligi), Marie-Claude Chappuis (Dorabella), Martina Janková (Despina), and Martin Mitterrutzner (Ferrando)—are competent but not outstanding. It may simply be that Eschenbach's deliberate pace casts a pall, but the recent Madrid production (VL-3/14) was also slow, and there the tempi were justified as part of Michael Haneke's visionary take on the opera. For a traditional reading, the 2006 Glyndebourne production (VL-9/10) remains the top choice. Presented in DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.0, and PCM stereo on DVD, and DTS-HD 5.0 and PCM stereo on Blu-ray, this is an optional purchase. (F. Swietek)