Rhythmic interplay between scene and orchestra
Going to see a new production of Verdi's Falstaff while still having crystal-clear memories of the previous KMS production of this opera is a daring venture and above all a challenge. That one featured two now-lamented consummate artists from the opera world: Willy Decker as director and Susan Chilcott as a charming Alice Ford.
Now it's Laurent Pelly's turn, and you naturally expect something special from him, especially since this director has been the hallmark of thoughtful and ingenious productions for some 25 years, particularly when there's even a hint of comedy to work with. His production of Rameau's Platée can only be called groundbreaking, and Donizetti's La Fille du régiment has been touring the world for about 20 years. At the Munt, Pelly was last seen in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. And let me make this clear right away: his Falstaff production is an unqualified success.
The opera with which Verdi closes his oeuvre is an oddball. Verdi approaches eighty and, after so much tension and tragedy, finally wants to compose a comedy again – something not seen since his early work Un giorno di regno (1840). But one that allows for refined wit. He draws on his beloved literary source: William Shakespeare. His preferred librettist Arrigo Boito creates a masterful adaptation of it. Bernard Haitink defines it simply: "If Verdi's operas are Burgundy, then his Falstaff is Champagne."
Perfect timing
The set gives us exactly what the opera demands: a cozy pub, a bourgeois home, and a whimsical backdrop for the finale. Within it, Laurent Pelly and his set designer Barbara de Limburg play with small adjustments and modifications that sharpen the situation each time. The café changes from small to large, just as Falstaff sings the praises of his fat belly. It might sound crude, but the way it lands, especially combined with Keenlyside's acting, creates a laugh. And of course the door that Ford and Falstaff must squeeze through together: it's an obligatory gag in Falstaff. The glass that Mrs. Quickly sips from when she visits Falstaff with the invitation – and she has another. The use of the stairs in Ford's house, up which the basket must be lugged, creates a certain tension that fits wonderfully with Verdi's music. The nighttime forest, slowly lit by mist against the lights of the apartment building. As if Pelly wants to make clear that behind the magical spectacle there's also a real world. For every scene you could cite examples of subtle details and interplay between characters that make the whole thing an endless theatrical celebration. The key to making it all work is timing, and Pelly masters it perfectly – and more: Altinoglu plays right into it with the orchestra. The unity of rhythm between scene and orchestra is simply sublime and aligns perfectly with Verdi's dramatic instinct.
The opera stands or falls with its title character, the pot-bellied drunkard Falstaff. Always hungry, always thirsty, and always broke. His last salvation plan: simultaneously seduce two beautiful and wealthy bourgeois ladies, Alice Ford and Meg Page. It doesn't go so smoothly, and whoever plays false gets deceived in the end, though Falstaff keeps his good humor and realizes at the end that the whole world is a farce! And let this be sung, adding irony to injury, to a solemn fugue!
Simon Keenlyside is a Falstaff through and through! Vocally the part sits perfectly on him. Keenlyside captures all the nuances the elderly Verdi embedded in the role. He revels in playing the true pub-goer, but always radiates enough vanity not to deny his long-ago "knightly status." And beneath his comic joie de vivre lies genuine melancholy at the beginning of the third act after his dip in the Thames. Keenlyside always strikes the right note, even in the elegant passages (for example "Quando ero paggio del duca di Norfolk"). In his meticulous text interpretation you recognize the seasoned art song singer.
The female roles are nicely characterized as the "gaie commari di Windsor," the merry wives of Windsor, out to teach the fat seducer a lesson. Sally Matthews as Alice remains somewhat flat compared to the trio – especially in her buffo duet with Falstaff (with nice effects for the bassoon), but the rest of the elegant female ensemble compensates enough to turn the conspiratorial plot of the second act into complete chaos. Their trick to also get even with Ford in the finale through the marriage of the young lovers Nanetta and Fenton is a successful romantic coup de théâtre.
Among the singers we should also note the convincing performance of Daniela Barcelona as Mrs. Quickly and Lionel Lhote, who maintains his Ford pretensions neither in his ridiculous disguise with red beard nor in his final defeat.
As already made clear: the orchestra under Alain Altinoglu plays brilliantly and with delightful accents in the woodwinds and especially in the piccolo which drives irony to the max, or in the trumpets that burst into laughter at the end of the second act when Falstaff is thrown into the Thames, and of course the horns as a symbol of the cuckolded husband! This performance was a whirlwind celebration.
