Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Falstaff: Commedia lyrica in three acts
Libretto by Arrigo Boito
Sir John Falstaff, Nicola Alaimo (bass-baritone); Ford, Simone Piazzola (baritone); Fenton, Matthew Swensen (tenor); Alice Ford, Aylin Pérez (soprano); Nanetta, Francesca Boncompagni (soprano); Meg Page, Caterina Piva (mezzo-soprano), Mistress Quickly, Sara Mingardo (contralto)
Orchestra and Chorus of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino/John Eliot Gardiner
Director, Sven-Eric Bechtolf
rec. live, 23 November 2021 at Teatro de Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Florence, Italy
DYNAMIC DVD 37951 [143]
I shall say straightaway that I am not a Verdi expert but I absolutely loved this performance, as I do this opera. The singing, the acting, the production, the conducting all seemed to me first rate. It is such a pleasure to find an opera DVD which does not fall down badly on at least one of these.
To start at the beginning, The Merry Wives of Windsor is one of Shakespeare’s weakest plays. It is said that he wrote it in a fortnight to satisfy Queen Elizabeth I’s wish to see Falstaff in love. It is generally agreed that the Falstaff of the Merry Wives is a much weaker character than the one in the two Henry IV plays, to the extent that this play is often omitted completely in critical discussions about him. However, Boito did a very skilled job of work in turning this play into a libretto. He dispensed with a number of minor characters and made a major change in having Fenton’s love be Nanetta Ford rather than Anne Page, which was necessary since he dispensed completely with Page senior. He added to Shakespeare’s text various passages from the Henry IV plays, such as Falstaff’s honour monologue at the end of the first scene, his evocation of his youth in the second scene and his monologue on the effects of hot wine at the beginning of the third act. There are also many smaller borrowings. These have the effect of enriching the character of Falstaff beyond what he is in Merry Wives. Boito also reduced Falstaff’s humiliations at the hands of the women from three to two, retaining only the laundry basket and the Windsor Forest scene. Moreover, Falstaff’s good humour at the end of the opera contrasts with his dejection at the end of the play.
Then we must consider’s Verdi’s superb music. This was his first comedy since Un giorno di regno fifty years earlier, which had been a failure. Falstaff is through-composed and largely lacks the big set-pieces characteristic of his earlier works. For this reason it took some time to make its way in the world, though Toscanini was an early champion and his support helped make it a repertory work. It is very fast moving and themes which might have been developed into whole arias in earlier works pass fleetingly by. The libretto does need to be followed in detail, which can now be achieved by surtitles in the opera house and subtitles on a DVD such as this.
The first thing about this production is that a faithful recreation of the time, space and action intended by the composer and librettist. This is a refreshing change from many opera productions nowadays. I do need to add that the set and costumes are reminiscent of the sixteenth century rather than the fourteenth, but then Shakespeare took Falstaff from the Henry IV plays and in effect transplanted him into the sixteenth, thereby putting him into a contemporary context. The Garter Inn is nicely evoked by Julian Crouch, as is the oak tree in Windsor Forest in the last scene. The costumes, by Kevin Pollard, are all delightful and I particularly enjoyed Falstaff’s smart get-up for wooing Alice Ford.
Falstaff is an opera of ensembles and I was impressed by the way the cast not only sang their roles but also acted them. Nicola Alaimo in the title role was a new name to me, though he has a long career and a big repertoire. The part requires a wide emotional range from the singer, with at times light fast comic singing but also the synthetic indignation of the honour monologue. He also needs to be a minimally plausible lover but also cope with the farce of the laundry basket and the humour of the final Windsor Forest scene. I liked the way Alaimo not only carried all this off but also really interacted with the other characters. He also made us feel that, although Falstaff is an old rogue, there is something genuinely charming and attractive about him.
Of the other characters the most important is Alice, and Ailyn Pérez was charming and clever in this role, one she has also performed at Glyndebourne and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The other merry wife, Meg Page, is a smaller part but was nicely done by Caterina Piva. The young lovers, Fenton, sung by Matthew Swensen and Nanetta, sung by Francesca Boncompagni, were convincing and Nanetta gave us a lovely fairy song in the last scene. Sara Mingardo was an effective Mjistress Quickly with a powerful lower register when required. Simone Piazzola gave us a formidably jealous Ford and a smooth and well-controlled Master Brook, when in disguise. The smaller parts were all adequately taken.
The conductor was John Eliot Gardiner, who is an old hand at Falstaff, but whose previous audio recording, made over twenty years ago, was not liked by Ralph Moore in his survey. I can only think things must have changed a good deal since then, since I could not fault him, as he seemed to follow all the moods and rapid changes of mood in a most natural way. He also brought out what seem to be occasional Wagnerian touches in the score, for example in Ford’s aria. The director was Sven-Eric Bechtolf whose obvious affection and respect for the work has given us a performance at once exuberant and touching. The sound and picture are fine and I know this will be going into my records of the year.
Stephen Barber
Other cast and production staff
Dr Caius, Christian Collia (tenor)
Bardolfo, Antonio Garés (tenor0
Pistola, Gianluca Buratto (bass)
Set designer, Julian Crouch
Costume designer, Kevin Pollard,
Light designer, Alex Brok
Video designer, Josh Higgason
Video details
Picture format: NTSC – 16:9; sound format Dolby Digital 5.1 – PCM 2.0
Region code 0 – all regions
Sung in Italian; subtitles in Italian, English, German, French, Japanese, Korean
