An Irreverent Synopsis: Act 2

The two sisters are attended by Despina, back in her maid's uniform and all business. “I can't believe you two,” she says, fixing hairdos that have gone askew. “Two perfectly nice blokes show up willing to give you the world and you come over all modest! Your fiances are off overseas, seeking adventure, why shouldn't you too? Don't you deserve to be worshipped?”

Dorabella thinks Despina had a point. But what would the neigbours say?

“Just tell them they're here to see me!” says Despina. “For goodness sake, sometimes you two are so clueless. Learn to play the game would you!”

“What nonsense!” cries Fiordiligi, hustling Despina out of the room.

“Nonsense, yes,” says Dora doubtfully. “Listen, Fiordi, could it really hurt to maybe...sit down for a cup of coffee with these gentlemen? An innocent diversion to pass the time while the boys are on the battlefield.”

Fiordiligi is stunned by the eloquent argument Dorabella puts forward, and can't come up with an argument against. Dorabella is delighted, as she's secretly thinking the dark-haired suitor – that is, the one who looks least like her own fiance – might provide the afternoon's entertainment. 

And so it's decided, Fiordiligi and Dorabella have unwittingly paired themselves up with each other's fiances. They excitedly run down stairs to find Don Alfonso waiting for them - “ladies, there you are!” he says. “You've been invited to a picnic. Your dates are waiting on the promenade.”

Despina decides to tag along as chaperone but quickly realises she isn't needed as they are all hopeless. The Russians have gone shy and the girls jabber on about the weather before the conversation runs out. The six of them walk in awkward silence for a while, but Guglielmo and Dorabella dawdle at the back of the line and finally have a moment alone. 

Goog's a bit shocked at how quickly Dora's surrendered her portrait of Ferrando. She's now wearing a locket containing the image of a mustachioed Russian. Poor Ferrando, his girlfriend was about as loyal as a contract assassin. He escorts Dorabella home, and with mixed feelings, tracks down Ferrando to tell him the bad news.  

“I think Don Alfonso may have been right, at least about Dorabella,” says Goog, a little shame-faced. “Sorry, old chum.”

“Meanwhile, Fiordiligi is still making me jump through hoops!” says Ferrando angrily. What Ferrando may or may not have noticed is that Fiordiligi doth protest too much. 

Guglielmo can't help gloating just a bit. This only confirms he's chosen the better sister.

Dorabella skips into the house and shows Despina the Russian in her locket. “You didn't!” gasps Fiordiligi.

“My bad!” says Dora, who has seemingly no pangs of conscience about cheating on Ferrando. “Love is a little thief. It's utterly beyond my control. You'll see what I mean soon enough."

Fiordiligi is torn apart with conflicting feelings. She thinks she loves Guglielmo, she wants to love Guglielmo, but the Russian Ferrando has stirred something up in her that Guglielmo never has. Could it be...no! She is resolute. She will push all thought of Ferrando from her mind and devote herself to Guglielmo. She takes a cue from the romantic novels she's read, decides to dress as a man and follow Guglielmo into the navy. It's the only way!

She runs upstairs into her absent father's wardrobe to get a pair of trousers and jacket, then back to her own bedroom to smuggle some jewellery in a draw-string bag. 

She's stuffing her mane of hair into a hat, and has no idea that the Russian Ferrando is climbing the stairs at that very moment about to give it one last decent shot.

Ferrando tries the suicide tactic again, threatening to stab himself, and Fiordiligi - who was a bit on the fence about Guglielmo now anyway, throws herself into his arms.

Indeed, by employing the age-old technique of wearing a woman down until she gives in, Ferrando has managed to screw over his old mate Goog the same way he's screwed him. Fiordiligi is finally his.

And yet Ferrando has his own anxieties. He truly thought himself in love with Dorabella and she with him, but today he's seen a side of her he simply can't reconcile. She barely even put up a fight. Fiordiligi, at least, she really tried. It wasn't her fault that as a woman she has a weak mind and lacks stickability. Ferrando now wonders if Fiordiligi isn't the preferable sister after all.  

When the Don suggests a double wedding in the drawing room before the day's out, Ferrando and both girls are enthusiastic. Guglielmo on the other hand, is livid. Underneath his boar-bristle mo, he could barely crack a fake Russian smile at Dorabella.

Don Alfonso pops open a bottle of Greco di Tufo from the Irpinia hills, aged five years, downs half a glass for himself and goes off again, promising to return with a notary amenable to shotgun weddings.

“A toast!” cries Fiordiligi, about the happiest anyone has seen her all day.

 What luck! Don Alfonso and a notary, who bears more than a little resemblance to Despina, walk in with all the proper documentation.

 “Gosh!” says Dorabella to Guglielmo. “How do you pronounce your first name?”

Goog struggles. “Stan...Stanislav?”

Dorabella nods. “Good to know.”

“What is your first name?” Fiordiligi asks Ferrando.

“Igor,” says the Don briskly. “Sign the papers, we haven't got all day.”

The wine on their empty stomachs makes the sisters feel a little giddy, and they can't be of sound mind as they sign the fake marriage contract. Don Alfonso's delighted. Women are all dreadful, faithless, wicked temptresses and poor men have to put up with them! The day isn't over yet, and having dashed the men's hopes of a happy marriage, the Don feels it's his duty to complete the circle by thoroughly humiliating the women.

A military march can be heard from the street... goodness! It's the same military march was played earlier today at the men's departure...this can only mean they're BACK! Fiordiligi and Dorabella flap their arms about nervously. “The war must be over! Gosh that was quick!”  

 Don Alfonso orders everybody about. “Hide!” he shouts at Despina, throwing her in a cupboard.

 “Hide!” he shouts at the two Russians who scamper out the servant's door.  

Fiordiligi and Dorabella are hardly religious, but they drop to their knees and pray to every god they can think of.

Despina sits in the cupboard and reflects on what can only be described as a sick and twisted game. She too has been fooled by the men's Russian disguises, and simply intended for her cloistered ladies to live a little. She has always had her suspicions about Ferrando and Goog as husband material, considering the influence Don Alfonso wields over them.

Things have certainly taken a nasty turn, as Ferrando and Goog, in their regular togs, sans moustaches, return triumphantly. “It turns out we weren't needed – the locals managed to sort out their problems amongst themselves!” says Ferrando jovially. “Dorabella, my sweet, why do you look like a frightened rabbit?”

“Hello what's this then!” thunders Guglielmo, getting right to the point. “A marriage contract! Signed and dated!” He stomps over to the cupboard and a crumpled little notary tumbles out. “Who is this person! A notary!”

 “No, no, just me!” trills Despina. “Off to a costume party!”

The two sisters exchange horrified looks, burst into tears and beg their boyfriends to just murder them on the spot and be done with it.

But instead, Ferrando and Guglielmo lean in and cruelly reveal themselves to be the Russians.

Fiordiligi and Dorabella out of guilt and shame stoically return to their original partners. The men grudgingly take them back, on the proviso that they all attend couples therapy once a week. It is suggested that Don Alfonso be phased out of their social circle, and things happily improve after that.

Despina hands in her resignation. She sails to Paris, joins a commedia dell'arte troupe and becomes one of the finest actresses of her generation.

The two couples come to realise that whether good or bad, there is something to be learned from every life experience. Still, in the years to come, the sisters remembered those Russian boys with great fondness, and those lockets round their neck are now home to two bristly moustaches.  

END OF ACT TWO.