By Peter Alexander

The 2017 season of the Central City Opera (CCO) is well launched, with two splendid productions in the main theater: a musically solid and entertaining production of Bizet’s Carmen and a revelatory production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte.

Carmen opened the season July 8 and continues through Aug. 6. Using sets stored since CCO’s 2011 season, it had an all-new cast and director. Carmen is a tricky show to pull off on Central City’s small stage. The act set in Lillas Pastia’s tavern works well, but the other three force compromises that are not always effective, including an awkward ballet in place of the bullfighters’ parade in the final act.

Matthew Plenk (Ferrando), Hailey Clark (Fiordiligi) and David Adam Moore (Guglielmo). Photo by Amanda Tipton, courtesy of Central City Opera.

Opening last Saturday, July 15, and continuing through Aug. 4, the production of Così fan tutte takes its cue from the opera’s subtitle: the school for lovers. By placing it in a Victorian-era boarding school, the production appropriately brings out the youth and inexperience of the lovers; it creates wonderful opportunities for humor, and it appeals to the Victorian vogue stoked by Downton Abbey.

In this context, Don Alfonso is a fusty professor teaching a needful lesson. Despina is a “house-mistress” whose cynicism comes from years of exasperation with the follies of adolescents. And the four lovers, described in the program as “students” who are “dating,” are clearly in the throes of self-dramatizing first love.

This setting fits Così perfectly. The Central City cast conveyed this interpretation wonderfully.

Read more in Boulder Weekly.