Falstaff (Opera)
by Giueseppe Verdi
with libretto by Arrigo Boito
State Theatre, Arts
Centre Melbourne
April 3, 5, 8, 11,
16, 1997
Reviewed by Kate
Herbert around April 1, 1997
Giuseppe Verdi turned
80 and decided that fifty years of tragedy was enough. He needed to write a
comedy. He borrowed Sir John Falstaff from Shakespeare's Henry 1V and The Merry
Wives of Windsor and made this "king of paunches", a jovial,
carousing and lusty old lord, the central character of his experiment in
Comedy.
He is better at tragedy, but Falstaff has its moments. Poor
old self-deceiving Falstaff believes he is the heartthrob of two widows (Joan
Carden & Rosemary Gunn) and proceeds to be humiliated by the pair and their
cohorts.
Director, Simon Phillips production plays with the slapstick
with some funny business from Jonathon Summers as Falstaff, Arend Baumann as
Pistola and Christopher Dawes as a very funny Bardolfo.
Summers is a warm and colourful Falstaff with a fine
baritone. The romantic sub-plot concerning the secret romance of Nanetta and
Fenton, is sung extremely well by Emma Lysons and Anthony Elek.
The staging and design (Iain Aitken) are very traditional
with an Elizabethan inn and houses and period costumes. The final fairy dell
scene in which Falstaff is terrorised by fairies and goblins is a shift into a
more mystical setting which breaks the pattern effectively.
The Victorian State Orchestra is once again in fine form
with one of my favourite conductors, Carlo Felice Cilauro, keeping the peppy
pace of this light and fluffy opera. It's all a bit of fun.
KATE HERBERT
250 wds
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