Falstaff
Music, G. Verdi: Libretto, A Boito
A new production at Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
Dedicated to the Memory of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Conductor Daniele Gatti
Sir John Falstaff Ambrogio Maestri
Alice Ford Ana Martínez
Ford Dalibor Jenis
Meg Page Kai Rüütel
Mistress Quickly Marie-Nicole Lemieux
Nannetta Amanda Forsythe
Fenton Joel Prieto
Dr Caius Carlo Bosi
Bardolph Alasdair Elliott
Pistol Lukas Jakobski
Chorus Royal Opera Chorus
Orchestra Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Falstaff is Verdi’s last Opera. It’s first performed in 1893 – almost half a century after his first triumph with Nabucco in 1842.
It’s only Verdi’s second comedy. His first Un giorno di regno had bombed in La Scala in Milan in 1840. For Falstaff Verdi once again collaborated with Arrigo Boito – himself a composer of opera who had worked with Verdi on Otello (1885-7). Boito ingeniously used parts of the plot of the Merry Wives of Windsor uniting it with parts of the Henriad (Henry IV I&II) where Falstaff first appeared to popular acclaim and where Shakespeare gives fullest expression to Falstaff’s complex character and vivid personality.
With Falstaff it might be argued that Shakespeare’s towering genius creates a character that might actually be alive. Falstaff is so vivid he towers over the plays where there are no mean numbers of characters that are given many great lines. Falstaff is different – as real a personality as any to bestride the stage or grace History. And yet he’s only an evocation; a man literally made from words. That’s the summation of Shakespeare’s genius. Verdi’s genius – and Boito’s too – is to distil this essence.
Verdi’s Falstaff is literally a musical match that equals in every aspect the intensity of Shakespeare’s Sir John Falstaff – losing nothing – indeed maybe adding. The Fugue at the end of the opera with its cris de cœur from Falstaff’s big heart – Tutti gabbati! (Everyone’s duped) – reflects in a single phrase the essence of both Shakespeare’s and Verdi’s Falstaff; but it reflects the reality of what gets caught in theatre’s mirror of unreality.
To willingly believe a character you know is merely a character and no more than an assemblage of words, to believe him to be real means we are indeed all duped – if only by genius!
Last night Ambrogio Maestri gave us an account of Falstaff that did honour to its dedication to the late, great Fisher-Dieskau. He was gently funny and giant of an ass full of the endearing weaknesses of character and vanities we all own. I loved all the women: Anna Maria Martinez gave us a velvety, mischievous Alice Ford; Kai Ruttel such a sleek sexy but satin- tongued, beguiling, Meg; Marie-Nicole Lemieux a lovely, roundly full throated Mistress Quickly and Amanda Forsythe a Lind-like Nanneta.
I feel guilty not to go on, with a proper mention of each member of the cast one by one – but in essence this opera is an ensemble piece. It only works if everyone sings better than just well. And they all just did – all through, all night. It was a really remarkable evening and the cast obviously love this production and enjoy performing in it.
This production reset in the 1950s from the 1590s – itself a convenient mirror image – works well because it’s well thought out. Robert Carsen knows the nous of Jonathan Miller in achieving this seamlessly. I adored the sense of the women picking items from their menu and excitedly responding to the dishes arriving at the table intrinsically within their singing. Brilliant! A vast John Falstaff reading a paper in bed; Pistol taking a pair of silk-undies in the confusion of Act II’s end – these were delightful. The tempo of all the action was brisk. Even the horse worked well.
Normally actors are wary of playing against children and animals. At the beginning of Act III setting the delicious melancholia of Falstaff’s self-pity against the horse’s laconic indifference as his munches his hay…that really added something that wasn’t even there in the music.
A great production is full of such nice touches and this is a great production.
For those love costumes Brigitte Reiffenstuel’s magnificent designs should win some award. Paul Steinberg’s sets were clever, simple and practical. They had wit that harmonised beautifully with the 1950s setting and made me at least remember my childhood.
So there you have it for once I can say that the ticket price for the Royal opera House’s Falstaff is a price worth paying for a night you will long remember and long after smile to recall.
This production gives us something that does justice to the genius of Shakespeare and Verdi. And when all is said and done that is what makes great Art.