With a swift kick, the walls on stage wobble and I think; what won’t a diva do to steal a scene? In this wonderful moment the diva happens to be a horse. It is always a thrill to see live animals on stage at the Met.*
The music for Falstaff is so vital and immediate, he jumps right into this comedy with no overture and it’s really hard to believe that this will be his last opera. At 80 years old he is still a fearless artist taking chances and growing.
Duets, quartets, sextets, otctets… I’m dazzled. This is opera’s great gift – to show 8 people communicating simultaneously and still maintain clarity and harmony. But no matter how many people are singing, it is the title character Falstaff who is the center of this universe.
Ambrogio Maestri turns gluttony and vice into human virtue as Falstaff, and I love him for it. I dream of being this comfortable with myself. He is full of a bombastic confidence fueled by a belief in himself that the universe is tuned to reset itself at midnight.
Ailyn Perez plays a fantastic Alice while Golda Schultz and Francesco Demuro are written to be scene stealers as they hide under tables and steal kisses. Their young romance counters nicely the other characters cynicism towards love.
The brightly colored set parallel the vitality of the music and I laugh out loud when the women toss poor Falstaff out the window.
The finale’s chorus with everyone singing all at once is transcendent, but there’s more.
The production takes an interesting risk and at first I wonder if something is wrong. The stage lights soften but the lights above the audience brighten like it’s finito. Then the players point to us. Us! The audience. If the horse rattled the fourth wall earlier, this collapses it completely. The actors in word and pointing fingers accuse us, the audience, of all taking our lives too seriously.
Bravo!
I don’t think Verdi would mind.
If ‘He who laughs last, lasts best,’ we had the best time tonight.
This fills out my Boito/Verdi journey this year that began with Boito’s own Mefistofele followed by La Traviata, Aida, Otello, and Rigoletto. Boito wrote Otello, Macbeth, and Falstaff for Verdi. If you are looking to learn more about Verdi I highly recommend a Great Courses audio on Verdi that was really informative. Your library may also have it: https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Life-and-Operas-of-Verdi-Audiobook/B00DD1D5SC
Falstaff begins with the title character unable to pay the bill from a night of eating and drinking with his friends. Falstaff is a young romantic at heart but within an aged and corpius body, but he is not the type to diet or buy self help books; he loves who he is and we love him for his self acceptance. He decides to fix his financial situation by seducing two wealthy young women by writing them the same love letter, which unkown to him they end up sharing with one another. In the end everyone conspires to teach Falstaff a lesson with a swelling of voices and hilarity.
*Animals at the Met. I love them! But, I think it deserves a qualifier. I’m still a little uncomfortable seeing pets in costumes or seeing clips of animals at the circus. Our usury relationship with animals for food and shelter began out of necessity, but a future will look back on this century with contempt for our treatment of animals. Our treatment of Animals should have as much volume in the press as climate and race.
Notes on the production
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Composer………………………..…… Giuseppe Verdi
Sir John Falstaff…………………….. Ambrogio Maestri
Alice Ford………………………………. Ailyn Perez
Nannetta……………………………….. Golda Schultz
Mistress Quickly……….………..…. Marie-Nicole Lemieux
Meg Page………………………….…… Jennifer Johnson Cano
Bardolfo…………………………….…… Keith Jameson
Pistola…………………………………….. Richard Bernstein
Fenton…………………………………….. Francesco Demuro
Ford…………………………………………Juan Jesus Rodriguez
Conductor…………………..………….. Richard Farnes
Metropolitan Opera
2/22/19