Cosi Fan Tutte

"It's a very sexy opera, and we have a very sexy cast," says director Jim Sharman. "It plays on an interesting idea, which everyone knows but nobody seems to acknowledge: that you can be in love with someone and desire someone else at the same time."

The premise of the comic opera Così Fan Tutte consists of a trick played on two sisters: for a bet, their fiancés try to seduce them in disguise. The twist is that each guy has to get the girl who's engaged to his friend.

"Mozart really feels for the characters," says Sharman. "While he was writing it his wife Constanze was holidaying in Baden-Baden with his assistant Süssmayr. Baden-Baden was the equivalent of going to Katoomba for a long weekend. I wouldn't be surprised if Mozart had sent them off deliberately so he could feel dreadful about their affair and write this beautiful music."

A veteran director of film and theatre, Sharman researched the lives of the two creators of what many consider the finest opera ever written. "Of course, Mozart was in love with his wife's sister Aloysia, who turned him down, and he married her younger sister. So he knows a bit about sisters."

And what about the wordsmith? As one would expect from a married Italian priest, he brought to the table a good understanding of adultery. "Lorenzo da Ponte famously wrote the libretto of Don Giovanni with a pen in one hand, a glass of wine in the other, and a wench in his lap," says Sharman. "The plot and libretto of Così Fan Tutte are witty and cynical, but the music is doing something else: there's a tug of war. That's where you get the best collaborations, even in a pop song."

Despite the richness of the score, the opera was not performed in 19th century because the libretto was thought to be immoral. "But for young people today the notion that they will only be with one person for their whole lives is no longer the norm. People can get a lot out of this opera because it speaks to the way they live now."

Sharman's new production begins and ends in the present day, but the masquerade in the middle where the sisters are wooed by their fake-bearded boyfriends is set in the opera's original 18th century. It is sung in English, but the title is left in Italian. 'Tutte' means 'all women'; the other two words have been variously translated as 'behave thus' or 'are like that' or just 'do it.' Sharman considers that generalisation unfair on the girls. "It's not so much 'tutte' as 'tutti' [everybody, male and female], because everyone betrays everyone else, having started off saying they would never do that."

So is taking your partner to this opera a risk to the relationship? On the contrary, says Sharman. "The alternative title is The School for Lovers. Particularly for those at a tender stage in a relationship, it offers a great deal of wisdom. The romantic, moralistic view is that it's to do with the corruption of innocence, but the rational view is that it's about enlightenment: the journey from innocence to experience is actually a good thing. So after the performance, I'd suggest sitting down with a cup of coffee and talking about what you've just seen."