Falstaff

When Carlo Maria Giulini returned to conducting public performances of opera after an absence of fourteen years, he chose for the occasion one of the enduring comic masterpieces – Verdi’s Falstaff. The composer was almost eighty when he broke the six-year silence following the premiere of Otello, and startled the musical world by revealing his complete mastery of comic invention. It is true that much of the success for this consummate work of genius is due to a libretto of extraordinary brilliance by Arrigo Boito, who took the substance of the piece from The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry IV, but nothing can detract from Verdi’s capacity for matching it with music of real wit and humour. Renato Bruson, the renowned interpreter of Verdi and one of the leading lyric baritones of the day, sings the title role. Katia Ricciarelli leads the trio of merry wives with Lucia Valentini-Terrani as Mistress Quickly and Brenda Boozer as Meg Page. Leo Nucci sings the role of Ford and the young lovers are here portrayed by Dalmacio Gonzalez and Barbara Hendricks. Stunning designs by Hayden Griffen and Michael Stennett provide the perfect setting for this witty interpretation of Shakespeare’s masterpiece.