Falstaff

Composer: Verdi, Giuseppe

Librettist/Text Author: Boito, Arrigo

Conductor: Rustioni, Daniele

Orchestra: Madrid Teatro Real Orchestra

Chorus: Madrid Teatro Real Chorus

Chorus Master: Maspero, Andres

Actor: Guimera, David

Actor: Soria, Jorge

Actor: Vina, Pablo

Actor: Wi, Jose Luis Alcedo

Actress: Aizpurua, Magdalena

Actress: Bergamin, Beatriz

Actress: Martin, Estrella

Actress: Meier, Dina

Bardolfo: Atxalandabaso, Mikeldi

Dr. Caius: Mortagne, Christophe

Fenton: Prieto, Joel

Ford: Piazzola, Simone

Mistress Quickly: Barcellona, Daniela

Mrs. Alice Ford: Evans, Rebecca

Mrs. Meg Page: Beaumont, Maite

Nannetta: Iniesta, Ruth

Pistola: Lanchas, Valeriano

Sir John Falstaff: Candia, Roberto de

Set Designer: Limburg, Barbara de

Costume Designer: Pelly, Laurent

Lighting Designer: Adam, Joel

Stage Director: Pelly, Laurent

Television Director: Lebard, Stephane

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Date of Production: 04-2019

Venue: Teatro Real, Madrid

Playing Time: 02:08:18

Catalogue Number: BAC177

UPC: 3760115301771

Libretto

Falstaff EN

Falstaff IT

Synopsis

Falstaff

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Out of Giuseppe Verdi's adoration for William Shakespeare three masterpieces were born: Macbeth, Otello and, as a musical testament, his only comedy Falstaff. But in accordance with its librettist Arrigo Boito's wish to remove the original bourgeois farce The Merry Wives of Windsor out of the English mists and to warm it up to the clear Tuscan sun, Falstaff transforms Shakespeare's morality play into an ode to life, to pleasure and to reconciliation that forgives human vices, rewards intelligence and virtue, and praises that spark of madnessthat gives life its flavour. Shakespeare's most famous and subversive comic character has indeed proved to be a fertile ground for Verdi who, then eighty-years old, signed with Falstaff his most modern, most ambitious, but also wisest and ambiguous opera.

It was high time that French stage director Laurent Pelly, an eniment specialist of the buffa repertoire, tried out his talents on this whimsical music drama: a task he performs with absolute maestria, highlighting with remarkable subtlety the numerous comic devices invented by Verdi and Boito but also pondering on the equivocal morality of the argument. He is, of course, helped in this endeavour by a wonderful team of singers: from the excellent baritone Roberto de Candia to the earthy mezzo soprano Daniela Barcellona as Mrs Quickly, without forgetting the exceptional Simone Piazzola as Ford, the wonderfully lyrical Rebecca Evans as Alice, or the candid Ruth Iniesta and Joel Prieto as Nannetta and Fenton, the young couple whose tender romance counterpoint Falstaff's heroicomic gest. At the head of the Orchestra of the Teatro Real, conductor Daniele Rustioni underlines with unusual clarity and finesse the extraordinary complexity of this "opus ultimum".