'Cosi fan tutte' in Princeton

Mozart's Cosi fan tutte grows more serious with age.

What was once considered a featherweight romantic comedy - two men test their fiancees' fidelity by pretending to go off to war and then come back in disguise to romance each other's intended mate - was thought to be trivial in the 18th century, amoral in the 19th century, and misogynist in the late 20th century. New Jersey Opera Theater came close to delivering the best of several worlds in a handsome production that opened the company's second summer season Friday at the Berlind Theatre in the McCarter Theatre complex.

Mozart's score isn't the sort to reveal previously undetected dark undercurrents: Its classical symmetry, both musical and dramaturgical, stands back and lets the story's meaning be revised by whatever society is around it, with the significant exception of the ending. Who ends up with whom is ambiguous, and how that ...