Of Mozart’s three masterpieces set to libretti by the future New Jersey greengrocer and professor of Italian at Columbia University in Manhattan, Lorenzo da Ponte, Così Fan Tutte is the last and most tantalizing. The director for the new production at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala is that meticulous Canadian craftsman Robert Carsen. The conductor is the British Alexander Soddy, whose musical sophistication matches his sensitivity to text. Will these gentlemen’s collaboration bridge the gap, for once, between the misogyny of the plot and the sublimity of the score? Here’s hoping. The plot, as you may know, hinges on a wager. When the cat’s away, the mice will play! How about two tragedy-queen sisters in the absence of the officers they plan to marry? No way, insist Giovanni Sala and Luca Micheletti as the guys who put down their money. No way, insist Elsa Dreisig and Nina van Essen as the unsuspecting ladies. Just watch, says Gerald Finley as the cynic who pulls the lovers’ strings with an assist from Sandrine Piau as a chambermaid, who has a financial interest of her own. That’s a cast to conjure with. —Matthew Gurewitsch