From around the world: London.(International)(Opera Review)

Currently being restored to its full Edwardian glory, the London Coliseum is scheduled to reopen in time for its centenary, in February 2004. Meanwhile, English National Opera is camping out at the Barbican Centre, offering a short season split between fully staged and concert performances. The season began on September 20, with a new production of Cost Fan Tutte, just sixteen months after Matthew Warchus's relatively successful staging of Mozart's comedy opened back at home base.

This most recent version marked the opera debut of actor Samuel West, himself a keen amateur musician, who has been dipping his toes into directorial waters of late. As he did in the previous production, the brilliant but erratic Mark Wigglesworth conducted. A second common factor was the jettisoning of the chorus. This seemed a pointless economy, especially when four extra actors had been hired to play domestic staff.

West had announced a contemporary Cosi and with simple but colorful designs by Alison Chitty, imaginatively lit by Peter Mumford, the show looked good. Apart from their contemporary feel, the visuals were spare enough to avoid any specific suggestion of place. Social and emotional relationships among the six characters seemed unusually vague. Despina (the charmless, monochromatic Alison Roddy) seemed to occupy a position equivalent to that of the two sisters, MatT Plazas as a sparky Fiordiligi (though one with little vocal substance at either end of her range) and Victoria Simmonds as a pallid Dorabella.

The men were disappointing, too. Colin Lee, a gray Ferrando, did little with his small but appealing tenor voice, and Toby Stafford-Allen was an anonymous Guglielmo. Holding things together as best he could was Andrew Shore's seasoned Don Alfonso, though his interpretation has shone more brightly in better surroundings. Both Shore and Plazas were guest artists, and their work only called attention to the lack of luster emanating from the four company principals. ENO is in a weak state if this was the best vocal team it could offer in such a ...