Alice (Angela Meade) and Sir John Falstaff (Ambrogio Maestri) set up a romantic rendezvous in first new production of FALSTAFF at the Met in nearly fifty years (photo by Ken Howard/Met Opera)
The Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center
Between West 62nd & 65th Sts. and Columbus & Amsterdam Aves.
January 6 & 11, $17 standing room – $330
212-362-6000
www.metoperafamily.org
The Met’s first new production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Falstaff in nearly fifty years is a spirited, engaging version by Robert Carsen, conducted with inspired flair and panache by James Levine. Baritone Ambrogio Maestri is splendid in the boisterous title role, which Verdi and librettist Arrigo Boito adapted from Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor as well as the two Henry historical plays. In Verdi’s final opera, a rare comedy, he tells a tale of Sir John Falstaff and his extravagant lifestyle, beginning in his elegant room at the Garter Inn the morning after an all-night drunken feast with his lawyers, Bardolfo (Keith Jameson) and Pistola (Christian Van Horn), as they recover and dispute Dr. Caius’s (Carlo Bosi) claims of robbery. In need of funds, Falstaff decides to woo wealthy married matrons Alice Ford (Angela Meade) and Meg Page (Jennifer Johnson Cano) for their money, but his scheme goes awry when the two women, along with Alice’s daughter, Nannetta (Lisette Oropesa), and gossipmonger Mistress Quickly (Stephanie Blythe, in fine form), learn of his devilish plot and decide to give him a dose of his own medicine. However, their plan is complicated when Alice’s husband, Master Ford (Franco Vassallo), believes a scheduled rendezvous between Falstaff and Alice is real. Meanwhile, Nannetta secretly trysts with her true love, Fenton (Paolo Fanale), while her father wants to marry her to Dr. Caius, allowing Verdi to go from raucous to romantic in the snap of a finger. Eventually everyone ends up in the dark forest, with appropriate chaos erupting.
Alice (Angela Meade) and Sir John Falstaff (Ambrogio Maestri) have a rather comedic tryst in Robert Carsen’s colorful production of FALSTAFF at the Met (photo by Ken Howard/Met Opera)
Carsen, who directed Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin at the Met in 1997 and whose new production of Boito’s Mefistofele will arrive in 2015, moves the bawdy tale to 1950s England, allowing costumer Brigitte Reiffenstuel and set designer Paul Steinberg to have a ball, particularly in a slapstick scene in act II when Ford interrupts Falstaff’s assignation with Alice in a brightly colored kitchen with Formica counters, a sparkling alternative to the austere elegance of the men’s lounge at the Garter. The very different sets, along with Falstaff’s poverty and the Fords’ wealth, also bring to mind the growing separation between the rich and the poor in postwar Britain. Things go off the rails in the forest finale in Windsor Great Park — what’s with the moving table and the headpieces? — but not enough to detract from the jolly enjoyment offered by the previous two hours plus. Maestri, who at the Met has sung Dr. Dulcamara in L’Elisir d’Amore, Alfio in Cavalleria Rusticana, and Amonasro in Aida, seems born to play Falstaff, taking delight in every belly rub, alcoholic imbibement, blustery pronouncement, and extravagant costume. Levine, who recently returned to the Met following a two-year absence because of a spinal cord injury, conducts with an infectious glee from his specially designed motorized wheelchair. The supporting cast, highlighted by Blythe, Meade, and Vassallo, keep pace with Maestri and Levine, resulting in a Falstaff to remember.