Costume design by David Walker for Fiordiligi in Mozart's opera, Cosi fan tutte, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 1968.

David Walker (1934-2008) studied design at the Central School of Art under Jeanetta Cochrane, from whom he learned the importance of a thorough knowledge of historical dress. He began his career as a costume cutter at Glyndebourne, then worked principally as a costume designer, first for Joan Littlewood's Liverpool Theatre Workshop and Theatre Workshop, Stratford East, in 1960, later at the Royal Court Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Ballet. He became one of the world's leading designers, especially acclaimed for opera and ballet, creating productions for every major opera house and ballet company. Walker's skill lay in the interpreting of historic dress in theatrical terms, working in a highly imaginative way with fabrics and trimmings while remaining true to the period in which the production was set. His obituary in the Guardian (25 March 2009) noted that 'colleagues admired Walker's pragmatism and ability to produce the effect of luxury on a tight budget.'

The 1968 production of Cosi fan Tutte was the Royal Opera's first staging of Mozart's opera. The work had been considered more appropriate for smaller theatres and had only been presented at Covent Garden by a visiting company, the Viennese State Opera in 1947. Directed by John Copley, the new production was a success with reviewers. Philip Hope-Wallace. writing in the Guardian (8 July 1968), felt that 'the scale, in sound and in comic force, has been judged to a nicety' and praised Henry Bardon's settings ('Neopolitan yet as pale washed and biscuit coloured as an aquatint by George Morland') and David Walker's costumes ('unlike so much we see in opera today, never lurid fancy-dress'). The production stayed in the Royal Opera House repertory until 1986. On its opening night Fiordiligi was sung by Pilar Lorengar.