OBERLIN, OHIO—�The Oberlin Conservatory of Music will present Mozart's bittersweet comic opera, Cos" fan tutte, sung in Italian with English surtitles, on March 10, 12, and 13 at 8 p.m., and a 2 p.m. matinee on March 14. Paul Polivnick, music director of the Oberlin Orchestra, leads the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra. The director is Jonathon Field, director of Opera Theater and assistant professor of music. Cos" fan tutte is produced in cooperation with the Oberlin College Theater and Dance Program and supported by the Louis C. Sudler Foundation.

This wonderful work features one of Mozart's most sublime and masterful scores set to an original libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte. Rumors that he based the story on an actual incident of the court are most likely unfounded but the opera was commissioned by Emporer Joseph II and had a run of five performances before his death in 1790 shut down the theaters for mourning.

The third of the Mozart-da Ponte operas (the first two being Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni) it is also the most misunderstood; after its brief original run it all but disappeared due to what was deemed its immoral content (the English translation of the title is All Women are Like That.) It began to be resurrected in the 1800's by well meaning but Victorian directors; the original libretto was generally bowdlerized, rewritten, and gutted so as to be completely unrecognizable, and the music was rearranged to the point of becoming meaningless. It has only surfaced in its original form in the present century and has recently come to be recognized for the true masterpiece that it is.

Two young soldiers, Ferrando and Guglielmo, are engaged to be married to two sisters, Fiordiligi and Dorabella, respectively. Don Alfonso, their worldly-wise old friend, challenges them to a bet that the women will not be faithful when their lovers are away. The two officers agree to the bet and the wily Alfonso has them pretend to go off to war, and then disguise themselves as Albanians to woo each others fianc?e. He then enlists the aid of the girls' maid Despina, and telling her only part of the tale, gets her to encourage her grieving mistresses to accept the Albanians. The ladies are outraged at first but as the handsome strangers wear down their resolve they eventually capitulate. Dorabella falls sooner but Fiordiligi falls harder. They are just about to sign marriage contracts with the Albanians (with a disguised Despina as notary) when the women learn of the "return" of Ferrando and Guglielmo. Don Alfonso encourages reconciliation but only time will tell the true outcome.

This Cos" fan tutte production features Oberlin Conservatory students double-cast in the principal roles. The casts alternate performances, with one cast appearing Wednesday and Saturday and the other on Friday and Sunday. The tight-knit ensemble includes the sisters Fiordiligi (Rhiannon Giddens '99 and Angela Baade '99) and Dorabella (Marie Lenormand '99 and Rosalie Sullivan '99), their fiancees Guglielmo (Hugh Russell AD '99 and Christopher Holmes '99) and Ferrando (Daniel Paget '99 and John Rodger '00); and the meddlers Despina (Erika Telano AD '00 and Vanessa Chaves '00) and Don Alfonso (Michael Chipman AD '00 and Michael Shawn Preacely '00). The chorus of helpful peasants consists of: Benjamin Cahn ('01), Elizabeth Floyd ('00), Rebecca Fromherz ('00), Jennifer Kew ('00), Charity Johnson ('99), Scott Skiba ('02), Jon Stinson ('00), and Peter Tantsits ('01).

Conductor Paul Polivnick, currently serving as Music Director of the Oberlin Conservatory Orchestras has also continued to direct the New Hampshire Music Festival. His international conducting engagements include Kiev Carmeratita in the Ukraine, the Orchestra of Castille and Laon, the Luxembourg Philharmonic, the KBS Orchestra in Seoul, Korea, and a recording with the London Symphony. He was made Principal Conductor of the Harmonia Nova Orchestra of Vienna, and has conducted the Orkester des Osterreichschen Rundfunks (ORF) in the capital city of Austria. In 1977, Mr. Polivnick served as Assistant Conductor for the Seattle Opera's production of the complete Wagner Ring Cycle. He entered the Juilliard School in 1969 as a violin major, studying with Oscar Shumskey. He graduated from Juilliard in 1969 with a degree in orchestral conducting, studying with Jean Morel. Concurrent with his studies at Juilliard, Mr. Polivnick attended the Tanglewood Music Festival on a conducting fellowship with conductor Leonard Bernstein. He has recently conducted at the Santa Barbara Grand Opera, the Central City Opera, and the Toledo Lyric Opera.

Director Jonathon Field has directed over seventy-five productions throughout the United States and is becoming one of America's most sought after stage directors. He has directed touring productions for the Lyric Opera of Chicago of Trouble in Tahiti, Gianni Schicchi, The Old Maid and the Thief, and The Spanish Hour. For San Francisco Opera's Western Opera Theatre he directed La Cenerentola and Die Fledermaus, and for Seattle Opera, an updated version of La Boh?me. In San Francisco he has also directed Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov in the orginal Russian. Over the past ten years, he has also directed ten productions for the Arizona Opera, being deemed by the press "their most perceptive stage-director." Mr. Field's range extends from the avante-garde to musical comedy. He has successfully introduced computer-generated scenery to opera production in Candide, and he has pioneered the use of video-projected scenery in productions of The Tales of Hoffmann and Der Freishutz. In the realm of operetta and musicals, he has staged H.M.S. Pinafore for Opera Omaha, Trial by Jury for Lake George Opera, Bernstein's Wonderful Town in Chicago, and Merry Widow and Countess Maritza in San Francisco.

The production staff includes assistant music director Alan Montgomery; assistant director/stage manager Jennifer Wamsley, Oberlin alumna; scene designer Michael Louis Grube, associate professor of theater; costume designer Chris Flaharty, associate professor of theater; lighting designer Jen Groseth, lecturer in theater; and assistant lighting designer Geoffrey Higgs, '99.