05/18/19 – Falstaff – 1pm (Royal Opera House)
The Royal Opera House’s Falstaff
Title: Falstaff
Hosts: Sean Rafferty, Lisa Flynn
Broadcast Producer: BBC
WFMT Series Producer: Daniel Goldberg
Conductor: Nicola Luisotti
Cast (in order of vocal appearance):
Dr. Caius – Carlo Bosi
Sir John Falstaff – Bryn Terfel
Bardolph –Michael Colvin
Pistol – Craig Colclough
Meg Page – Marie McLaughlin
Alice Ford – Ana Maria Martinez
Mistress Quickly – Marie-Nicole Lemieux
Nannetta– Anna Prohaska
Fenton – Frederic Antoun
Ford – Simon Keenlyside
Giuseppe Verdi’s final opera tells the tale of a portly knight with an irrepressible appetite for life, love and laughter. Falstaff crowned a career that spanned more than fifty years. Arrigo Boito – with whom Verdi also collaborated on Otello and the revisions for Simon Boccanegra – created a sparkling libretto based on Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry IV Parts I and II. Verdi matched the libretto’s sprightliness with a score full of quicksilver switches in mood and tempo. Falstaff had its premiere in Milan in 1893 when Verdi was 79 and was instantly hailed as a masterpiece.
Robert Carsen’s production is set in 1950s England and draws out the warmth, love of food and comedy at the heart of the opera. Falstaff moves from comic intrigue, as the ‘merry wives’ outmanoeuvre the scheming men, to tender romance and infectious merriment. Musical highlights include Falstaff’s monologue in Act I in which he mocks honour, Fenton’s lovestruck sonnet in Act III, the wives’ jubilant plotting ensembles and the final – sublime – fugue in praise of laughter.
