Cosi Fan Tutte

A word of explanation for the unfamiliar: the Salzburg Marionette Theater, located in Salzburg, Austria, performs conventional works of musical theater and opera, but - per its name - eschews traditional onstage actors and actresses and has minutely-detailed marionette puppets, controlled by offstage puppeteers with strings, act and dance the principal roles. The voices are performed by offstage cast members, and sung atop the puppetry. This particular Salzburg production offers a marionette version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 1790 opera buffa +Cosi fan tutte, The comic premise, which concerns fiancée-swapping, combines elements of +Cymbeline and +The Taming of the Shrew, as well as +Procris. This version, from 1995, is narrated by two-time Oscar winner Peter Ustinov, a little less than a decade before his death. Pilar Lorengar voices Fiordiligi, Teresa Berganza voices Dorabella, and Ryland Davies voices Ferrando. The London Philharmonic Orchestra, under the masterful baton of the eminent Sir Georg Solti, lends musical accompaniment.