Così fan tutte at the Gaiety: Mozart’s clickbait opera doesn’t translate to an Irish landscape

The title of Mozart’s 1790 opera translates as “women are like that”, Lorenzo da Ponte’s Italian libretto providing a bit of late 18th-century clickbaiting. The modern world didn’t invent outrage marketing. The story runs thus: two sisters Fiordiligi (Anna Devin) and Dorabella (Sharon Carty) wave their boyfriends Ferrando (Dean Power) and Guglielmo (Benjamin Russell) off to war. Unbeknownst to the girls, their paramours are actually participating in a bet to test their fidelity, put together by misogynist mischief maker Don Alfonso (John Molloy). He is aided in his nefarious plan by the girls’ maid, Despina (Majella Cullagh).