Tag

Falstaff

È sogno o realtà?

May 6, 2023

Verdi’s last opera Falstaff, written when he was almost 80, is opera’s greatest sport. It is unlike anything else by the composer or by anyone else, for that matter. Verdi had written all his previous with the expectation of pleasing his audiences while observing the highest artistic standards. But near the end of his life, […]

Falstaff in HD 2023

April 1, 2023

Robert Carsen’s production of Verdi’s valedictory masterpiece Falstaff was first telecast by the Met in December 2013. It returned today with a new cast. Verdi’s last work for the stage is an operatic sport. There is no work in the canon like it. Its melodic fecundity, mercury-like pace, vocal ingenuity, and its deep insight into […]

Reiner Conducts Falstaff – Met 1949

February 9, 2019

Verdi’s final opera is both a departure from all he had done previously and yet the culmination of a half century career. Building on the musical language the had developed to perfection he wrote an opera that was unlike any that preceded it. Musicians loved it from the start. Richard Strauss thought it one of […]

Tutto Verdi – Falstaff

August 12, 2018

The curtain descends, everything ends, too soon, too soon Ogden Nash Verdi’s valedictory opera was performed by Parma’s opera company as part of their complete survey of the Master’s operas. The show was presented at the Teatro Farnese di Parma instead of the Teatro Regio for reasons unknown to me. I’ve written a lot about the […]

Falstaff in HD – A Triumph

December 14, 2013

Verdi’s farewell to the theater was telecast today by the Metropolitan Opera. This new production staged by Robert Carsen replaces the Zeffirelli Falstaff that debuted in 1964. I’ve not been a fan of Carsen’s work and was very apprehensive about its worth when I heard that he moved the time from Elizabethan England to the […]

Falstaff in San Francisco

October 9, 2013

October 2, 2013 marked the first performance of the San Francisco Opera’s new production of Giuseppe Verdi’s final opera Falstaff. Bryn Terfel in the title role was the show’s big attraction. Over the past 50 years I’ve seen more performances of Falstaff than I can remember. Terfel’s impersonation was by far the best. He’s been […]