The myriad delights contained within Verdi’s final opera can obscure the fact that it is a remarkably difficult work to stage well. Verdi, with his usual dramatic economy, managed to compress a lot of action into a little over two hours, and any director approaching Falstaff needs not only the ability to render its rapidly-paced scenes with assurance, but also the light touch so essential to comedy. If its cast does not require voices of quite the same magnitude as those necessary for, say, Ernani or Il Trovatore, a group of lively singers with a feel for both the irony and warmth in Verdi’s score can make the difference between an average production and a great one.
The new production of Falstaff performed as part of this year’s Santa Fe Opera was a success on nearly all fronts. Sir David McVicar’s energetic, lightly ribald staging made…
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