Art and Design Key Stage 3

Do siblings/ best friends help you out or get you into more trouble?

Firstly listen and watch the excerpt from Cosí fan tutte; ‘Prenderò quel brunettino’ (‘I’ll take the brunette one’).  

• If students haven’t seen the opera yet, ask them who the two women might be and describe their relationship.
• If students have seen the opera, a more in-depth discussion could take place comparing the relationship between the sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella and best friends Ferrando and Guglielmo.

Then, using the character descriptions on the Cosí fan tutte opera guide, ask students to record the character traits of the two sisters.

Introduce the painting, The Cholmondeley Ladies by playing spot the difference;

• Either photocopy the painting on A4 in black & white for each student and cut out the face from the photocopy or ask students to sketch the two sisters in the painting.
• Instead of using the faces from the painting, students could sketch the portraits of Fiordiligi and Dorabella using photographs from the character descriptions or a general portrait proportion guide.
• They should colour the clothes based on their character traits e.g. Fiordiligi is passionate so could wear red/ purple. This could fit easily with a portrait drawing scheme.