An Irreverent Synopsis: Act 1

It's a beautiful April morning on Brighton Beach. The morning sun is twinkling on the azure water, and two young naval officers are blowing off some steam with a game of quoits. 

Ferrando and Guglielmo are engaged to two sisters, the daughters of a successful trader and are wrapped up in the excitement of falling in love for the first time, and to such good, faithful girls.

Today they're joined in their game by Don Alfonso, who for whatever reason has never had any luck with women himself. “They're all the same!” he often exclaims. “Cosi fan tutte! Can't trust em as far as you can throw em!”

Don Alfonso's repetitive ranting is getting tiresome – Dorabella and Fiordiligi are different.

Don Alfonso lays a wager. For once and for all, he'll prove in just one day, that there is no such thing as a faithful woman. “You're on!” cries Ferrando and Guglielmo, shaking the Don's hand.

“This is how we'll play it out,” Don Alfonso says, rubbing his hands together as villains often do.

“You two are going to pretend to go off to war. Then you return in disguise and attempt to seduce the other's girlfriend.”

Already Ferrando and Guglielmo can see a major flaw in the plan. Neither Dorabella nor Fiordiligi

has poor eyesight. They'll see through the disguises straight away, surely?

“You'd be surprised,” says the Don, experienced in sabotaging other people's relationships.

Fiordiligi and Dorabella live with an aging maiden aunt, who despite her best intentions, has failed to instill in her nieces the required values and skills of the time. In fact, the aunt spends most of her time gazing at her five beautiful engagement rings from five failed engagements, and trying to remember which former fiance gave her which ring.

What the sisters lack in education they make up for in looks and their father's success and upward social trajectory means they're attractive candidates for marriage. Fiordiligi is a bit defensive about the fact that perhaps she and her sister are “new money”, and was cautious when suitors came calling. Guglielmo is an upstanding gentleman, respectful and responsible, qualities Fiordiligi thinks make a good husband. Meanwhile Dorabella cares less what other people think and is happy to let her instinct lead the way. She likes Ferrando's good humour and the fact he's a good dancer, not like Goog who regularly treads on Fiordiligi's toes.

Don Alfonso arrives at their house and raps on the front door. The sisters peer down from their balcony and wonder why he's bothering them again.

The Don is always hanging around. He's taken a particular interest in Guglielmo and Ferrando, establishing himself as something of a mentor. Fiordiligi knows she always be respectful to visitors, and is polite every time the Don shows up, usually at a meal time. Dorabella reluctantly follows her lead.

Today Don Alfonso's knocking sounds urgent, so the sisters hurry down three flights of stairs and meet him in the front hall.

“What has happened?” Fiordiligi asks immediately, seeing the look on the Don's face.

“They've been called up,” Don Alfonso tells her, looking terribly, terribly sad.

The sisters aren't entirely sure what being “called up” entails. Don Alfonso clarifies. “Conscripted... into the navy...they're off to war!” he adds, for drama. 

At that very moment, in walk the unhappy sailors. 

The four unhappy lovers bemoan cruel fate the whole way from the house to the port. A longboat is waiting for the boys, manned by a dubious-looking character that Don Alfonso picked up at a tavern and paid a few coins for his cameo role.

The girls can't bear to let go of their sweethearts, to the point where Don Alfonso has to prise their fingers off.

Eyes full of tears, Fiordiligi and Dorabella, handkerchiefs fluttering, and a surprisingly distraught Don Alfonso watch the boys glide out of the harbour and out of sight.

Don Alfonso escorts the highly emotional sisters home, repeating his condolences and dashing off again. Fiordiligi and Dorabella climb the three flights of stairs back to their private sitting room, and by the time they got there, their knees are buckling with the reality of the situation.

Fiordiligi prefers to keep her suffering to herself, by reading a very sad sonnet or crying into a hand mirror; Dora's a rager. Their maid, Despina, is surprised to find Fiordiligi almost prostrate with depression and Dorabella about to stab her own hand with a cake fork.

Despina finally manages to get it out of her that the boys have been called off to war.

Despina is not one to waste time or energy on things she can''t control. She is only twenty-five but she's a wise old thing. “First of all, love is all smoke and mirrors, second of all, what is the point of going into mourning for two men who are probably cheating on you anyway?”

Fiordiligi and Dorabella have never been spoken to so plainly on such an intimate subject, and are torn between flouncing out of the room in disgust and hearing more. “What do you mean, cheating on us?”

Despina explains. “Sailors are by far the worst. They have a girl in every port. Soldiers aren't much better. My advice is, while the men are away, the girls should play. There are boys lining up the block to promenade with you. Seize the day, ladies!”

“Enough!” says Fiordiligi, starting to blush. “Enough of these sweeping generalisations! Our men are different.” She turns to Dora, who nods in agreement.

The sisters retire to their separate bedrooms, Fiordiligi to gaze at Guglielmo's face in her locket until she can't gaze at it any more, Dorabella to think about Ferrando and make a mental pros and cons list.

Neither of them hears Don Alfonso rapping on the door again half an hour later. Despina, no great fan of his, lets him into the house and into the drawing room, explaining that the ladies are in deep contemplation in their quarters and won't be disturbed. "It's not them I've come to see," says the Don, "it's you."

Despina groans. "Do we have to go through this again?" she says. "I've told you numerous times, Don Alfonso, you're old enough to be my grandfather. I may be a lady's maid but I can do a lot better."

"Fine," says the Don. "Your loss. Anyway, there are other more pressing matters. It may seen shockingly soon, considering their fiances only left Brighton today, but some foreign visitors have been making enquiries about the availability of the sisters."

Despina's interest is piqued. "Foreign visitors?" she asks. "How glamorous. But I can't imagine they will get anywhere with my ladies. They're being stubbornly tragic."

Don Alfonso leans in a little closer, conspiratorially. "The thing is, my dear Despinetta," he says, "if you could put in a good word for these foreigners, they would be ever so grateful." He drops some coins into Despina's hand.

Despina considers the proposal. "Well, let's meet them at least," she says.

And in walk two moustachioed Russians.

Fiordiligi and Dorabella mightn't know much, but they do know how highly improper it is to just walk into someone's house and start making absurd declarations of love, which these Russians are doing profusely. Furthermore, as far as Fiordiligi is concerned, she's all but married to Guglielmo, which makes the very presence of these foreigners in her house even more outrageous. The girls are thoroughly insulted and sweep out of the room. 

The men are in a jolly mood. They can sense victory – the girls are devoted to them and will not allow their heads to be turned. They sneak up upon the girls down on the pier, having hatched a brilliant plan with Don Alfonso – they are going to attempt suicide! “It's a fool-proof way to make women fall in love with you!” the Don assures them. “All women have a soft spot for dying men, it's in their nature to want to nurse them back to life in the warmth of their bosom.”

The men dramatically down a bottle of poison right in front of the girls and stumble about in "pain", crying that it is all the girls' fault that they are now facing death. It is indeed fortuitous that Despina not only knows of a brilliant doctor but she's available!

 

The doctor, bearing more than a little resemblance to Despina herself, arrives on the scene in the nick of time, and with excellent credentials. Madam Dr. Fatalis has special certification in magnet therapy, a hugely popular extraction technique not dissimilar to using leeches, but less icky.

Hail modern medicine! The wonderful doctor manages to extract the poison from the dying Russians' bodies, and the wooing continues in earnest.

END OF ACT ONE.