By Francis Carlin [Financial Times, 9 July 2008]

Producing opera is a serious job, not something to be undertaken just because you fancy doing it. This new Così marks the 60th anniversary of the festival, which started in 1948 with the same opera, and the operatic debut of Abbas Kiarostami, the 68-year-old Iranian filmmaker. It is, sadly, an amateurish flop.