United States Verdi, Falstaff: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera, New York / Daniele Rustioni (conductor). Broadcast (directed for the display by Habib Azar) from the Metropolitan Opera, New York, to Cineworld Basildon, Essex, 1.4.2023. (JPr)
In 2013, seeing Richard Jones’s 2009 staging of Falstaff at Glyndebourne, after which the chance to see Canadian Robert Carsen’s 2012 manufacturing (I noticed when it was first placed on at Covent Garden) in an earlier Met Live in HD broadcast made me recognize Verdi’s final opera greater than I had up to now due to three performances in such a short while. Both these productions introduced what we noticed ahead to the Fifties and we have been positively not within the time of Shakespeare’s Henry IV. In 1975 (sure, the Nineteen Seventies!) Falstaff was one of many first operas I noticed at Covent Garden in its lavishly conventional Franco Zeffirelli staging with the incomparable Geraint Evans within the title function. At the Met, Carsen’s model crossed the Atlantic and changed their much-loved Zeffirelli one relationship from 1964!
There, I’ve readily admitted Falstaff has by no means actually been a favorite go-to opera of mine and is on a brief listing – headed by Ariadne auf Naxos – that I’m comfortable to return to – often! – hoping that I would perceive what the fuss is all about. Falstaff at Glyndebourne prompted one thing of an epiphany and my appreciation has been intensified by revisiting what Carsen has accomplished with it. Perhaps it’s an age factor, and I’m mellowing because the years go by – although I doubt it? We all know that in 2013, 80 is the brand new 70 however for Verdi to premiere this masterpiece – and sure, I’m comfortable once more to confess that’s what it’s – in 1893 at such an important age is astonishing. Of course, it wasn’t as if Verdi was simply reliving previous glories in Falstaff, since there’s a diploma of musical invention, akin to, within the ensembles and contrapuntal finale that Verdi by no means used earlier than. Taking his inspiration from librettist Arrigo Boito’s cheery adaptation of Shakespeare’s comedian verse, Verdi responded with usually joyful, at all times intricate – and very refined – music which just about completely matches the move of the phrases when sung. (The personable conductor Daniele Rustioni mentioned a few of this in a pre-recorded introductory phase throughout the interval, which I at all times suppose can be higher to point out earlier than the opera begins.)
Many could have seen Carsen’s great comedy of manners within the cinema or on the opera home as a result of his Falstaff was a co-production with a variety of different corporations. This is an England recovering after World War II when life was by no means the identical once more for a lot of of those that had loved a lifetime of privilege earlier within the twentieth century. A extra fashionable nouveau riche age of entrepreneurial males and extra liberated ladies was rising. Falstaff is an previous reprobate lodging in an expensive nation lodge, the ‘Garter Inn’, along with his doubtful companions, Bardolfo and Pistola. We first encounter him in an oak-panelled room on a big mattress in filthy long-johns (he by no means adjustments) and surrounded by proof of a number of days’ room service he clearly doesn’t have the cash to pay for. Falstaff has clearly ‘gone to seed’ however retains the braggadocio of former days and nonetheless believes he’s god’s present to ladies regardless of his weight problems which for him is proof of his significance and efficiency.
Ford reveals off his ‘new money’ with a ‘Betty Crocker’ kitchen full with all of the ‘mod-cons’ of post-war days and shiny yellow and orange fittings. There is a few class-consciousness – rampant in England even in 2023 – and far enjoyable is product of the ‘chattering’ garishly-dressed ladies disrupting diners and pre-empting the decline of the British Empire by invading the lads’s retiring room. In full looking regalia Falstaff (because the grasp of the hunt?) presents his inamorata, Alice Ford, a fox’s tail as a present and she or he cooks him a turkey! Carsen’s staging is at its finest within the madcap Richard Jones-inspired seek for Falstaff by all the cabinets as Ford and his staff storm by the kitchen hoping to catch him in flagrante delicto along with his spouse.
Seeing the whole lot in Habib Azar’s close-up camerawork permits the chance to note issues which may simply be missed within the opera home, akin to within the ‘dining room’ scene (which ought to truly be a backyard setting) when Bardolfo picks up a serviette to present it again to a diner and walks off to rifle by her purse he has picked up. Also, in that scene there’s a notably fascinating concept from Carsen when he has time actually stand nonetheless for Ford’s daughter, Nannetta, who’s in love with humble waiter, Fenton, and it provides them a couple of stolen moments collectively. I missed the better intimacy this manufacturing had when seen at Covent Garden since having been tailored to the Met’s bigger stage Paul Steinberg’s units now seemed too huge. Indeed, I mused that everybody is scurrying across the big kitchen at such a stamina-sapping velocity that they’d have benefited from utilizing e-scooters!
After the interval – and in a steady setting – a horse is seen nibbling some hay and upstages all else we see for a number of minutes. I’ve at all times felt Carsen has run out of concepts till the gorgeous last tableaux when everybody sits down at lengthy eating desk for the marriage supper and Falstaff raises a toast. Tables been used as a ‘runway’ for Nannetta to stroll down in her bridal robe as ‘Queen of the Fairies’ and for a clearly reluctant Falstaff – each character and performer – to roll alongside awkwardly and be stricken by cutlery-wielding, cloaked and horned figures (somewhat drab costumes right here from Brigitte Reiffenstuel) all able to ‘feed’ on the glutton. Though the flawed Shakespeare, ‘All’s Well That Ends Well’ as Nannetta and Fenton get Ford’s blessing after Dr Caius, whom he meant for her, is ‘married’ to Bardolfo. Falstaff accepts the life-changing expertise he has had – however whether or not he has actually learnt his lesson Verdi and Shakespeare depart the viewers to determine as he nonetheless sings about not solely being witty in himself, however the reason for that wit in others!
The big Met auditorium additionally broaden the performances from what you would possibly hear elsewhere and there was little that was conversational on this Falstaff. We have been often reminded that Michael Volle is one in all this technology’s main Wagner singers … and there are few laughs in Wagner as we all know. He is a consummate artist however, for me, doesn’t appear a pure comedian actor. Regardless he relished his (fats swimsuit) paunch which he known as ‘mio regno’ (‘my kingdom’). However, when he sang ‘Ebben?’ (‘Well?’) to Mistress Quickly it was sung simply as menacingly as Volle’s Scarpia does to Tosca!
Chauncey Packer and Richard Bernstein have been the participating pair of rogues, Bardolfo and Pistola, and Carlo Bosi repeated his fussy Dr Caius I’ve seen each at Covent Garden and from the Met. Christopher Maltman was the uptight Ford, embarrassed and infuriated by his spouse’s perceived deceit and Maltman relished his flip disguised as ‘Mr Fontana’, a Texas oilman or cattle baron, or each. Bogdan Volkov and Hera Hyesang Park have been ideally matched because the pair of lovers, Fenton and Nannetta, each clearly infatuated with one another and with voices which blended nicely collectively. Ailyn Pérez was a delightfully, open-faced, conspiratorial Alice Ford; Marie-Nicole Lemieux was a suitably fruity-toned and blowsy Mistress Quickly, a formidable lady able to enjoying Falstaff at his personal sport and successful! Jennifer Johnson Cano joined in all of the enjoyable and video games as Meg Page and finishing your entire distinctive ensemble was the Met’s refrain in sometimes redoubtable kind.
Daniele Rustioni was, fairly rightly, applauded by the musicians of the distinctive Met Orchestra at this final efficiency of the present run and in addition acclaimed by the viewers who had heard a fleet-footed, seamless, expressive and nuanced account of Verdi’s complicated rating to which Rustioni gave an underlying rhythmic pulse. Even although not laugh-out-loud humorous this Falstaff was completely participating and entertaining.
Jim Pritchard
Production:
Director – Robert Carsen
Set designer – Paul Steinberg
Costume designer – Brigitte Reiffenstuel
Lighting designers – Robert Carsen, Peter Van Praet
Revival Stage Director – Gina Lapinski
Live in HD Host – Ryan Speedo Green
Cast:
Nannetta – Hera Hyesang Park
Alice Ford – Ailyn Pérez
Mistress Quickly – Marie-Nicole Lemieux
Meg Page – Jennifer Johnson Cano
Fenton – Bogdan Volkov
Falstaff – Michael Volle
Ford – Christopher Maltman
Bardolfo – Chauncey Packer
Pistola – Richard Bernstein