Verdi often used Shakespeare dramas for his opera plots, but it was a great surprise that his final work (first performed in 1893) should have been based on a comedy by the bard. We have his librettist Boito to thank for this: between them, they produced a wonderful opera that serves as an unexpected but fitting farewell for the great composer. This sharp and perceptive production, directed by Richard Jones and designed by Ultz, manages to be funny when needed and to bring out the undercurrent of melancholy too. First shown by Glyndebourne in 2009, it has aged very well.
Sir John Falstaff is an old soldier living on past glories and an absurdly inflated ego. He lives in The Garter Inn at Windsor and has hotel staff and some old followers fooled into serving his whims and ignoring his penniless state. He still considers himself a successful philanderer and decides to pursue two Windsor wives with designs on their bodies and on their money. Mistresses Ford and Page find out what Falstaff is up to and organise a trick to teach him a lesson. Despite his dunking in the Thames, Sir John is persuaded that the women are still interested in him and finds himself in Windsor Forest at Herne’s Oak at midnight. Here, disguised as Herne the Hunter, he is tormented by his intended victims and unmasked but somehow manages to emerge with a little of his dignity preserved and his good humour resurgent.
Jones and Ultz set the story in 1946 and the production looks wonderful, from the wood-panelled interior of the Garter Inn, to the mock-Tudor home of the Fords, to the Windsor street scene outside the Innthough we do pay a price for this in slow scene changes. We have gardens still serving as cabbage patches, Mistress Quickly in an ATS uniform, and mischievous brownies and Eton pupils. This approach does mean that the other-worldly magic that some directors find in the final scene is lost but the detail is splendid and plays into the humour without seeming forced. And there is real humour here without sacrificing the beauty of the music.
Renato Girolami is a near-ideal Falstaff. Pompous and larger-than-life, he exudes the charisma the role needs to avoid becoming a portrait of seedy lechery. His adversaries, Alice Ford and Meg Page, sung by Anna Princeva and Stephanie Lauricella, are well drawn and well sung. Valentina Pernozzoli delivers a very fine comic performance as a formidable, uniformed Mistress Quickly—not above flirting with Falstaff on her own account, much to his discomfiture. A slight disappointment is the pallid nature of the subplot between Nanetta and Fenton, here cast as a GI who has stayed on “over here” after the war. Despite fine singing, their romance never quite comes to life.
The playing of the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the marvellous Sian Edwards was exemplary. The strings, in particular, captured Verdi’s new musical language for his swansong comic opera: no big arias, but a fluid, conversational style. Glyndebourne is a very special place—its care in allowing singers to develop their characters and its emphasis on ensemble style pay handsome dividends in a work like Falstaff. Let’s hope this treasure keeps returning to the stage for years to come.
Composer: Giuseppe Verdi (1813 – 1901)
Libretto: Arrigo Boito (1842 – 1918)
Conductor: Sian Edwards
Director: Richard Jones
Designer: Ultz
Performers incl: Renato Girolami, Stephanie Lauricella, Anna Princeva, Rodion Pogossov
Running time: 4 hours (including 90 minutes interval)
Dates: until 24 August
Photographs: © Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. Photo: Bill Knight