Falstaff - Royal Opera House, 15 May 2012 (production premiere)
A star was born at Covent Garden last night. Poised and stately, his lean-muscled frame and liquid brown eyes drew every gaze his way. A frisson ran through the whole audience as each flick of his silky hair hinted at an impending intention to leave his mark on the stage.
L'elisir d'amore - National Theatre Munich, 21 July 2010
Of course I knew (a few hours) in advance. But it seemed from the collective gasp that many were taken by surprise when it was announced that illness prevented Rolando Villazon from appearing and Pavol Breslik, having arrived just an hour before from a Salzburg rehearsal, would be taking his place. I probably wouldn't have booked for one of my least favourite operas (long sold out) if it wasn't for the scheduled appearance of one of my most favourite singers. It seemed from the widespread booing when Rolando's name was announced that many others wouldn't have either.
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Falstaff - Wiener Staatsoper, 24 May 2008
Any production of Falstaff stands or falls by the performance of its titular fatboy. Ambrogio Maestri, sporting homegrown manbewbs and built-in padding looked born to the role. His voice is not the most beautiful, he strained for his high notes and rasped his pianos. But he delivered an intelligent and varied range of sounds, even if not all of them were quite 'singing', and his sheer idiocy was endearing. Falstaff is a fuller character (and closer to the Shakespearean) if played with more wit and malevolence, but Maestri's interpretation meshed with the carefree jolliness of Marco Arturo Marelli's production.
Marelli seems to have taken Falstaff's final words 'Tutto nel mondo è burla' ("all the world's a joke") at face value - in fact he filled the stage with them on a giant screen in the final scene. The determined avoidance of any psychological insight and smothering excess of good-humoured niceness gutted the opera of any moral overtones. Boaz Daniel's efficiently sung Ford was a bland, dutiful husband, not a jealous spouse and overbearing father, and the crooked Pistola and Bardolfo were simply loveable oafs. The elaborate tricks of the wives seemed an interfering brake on Falstaff's fun rather than an overdue lesson in probity.
Apart from the Garter Inn, which was a cosy nest of flame-coloured beer barrels and Indian rugs set beneath the main stage, most of the action was bravely set on a bare platform. It needed action to fill it, and the greatest strength of this production was the skilled and neatly choreographed physical interplay between characters, deftly handled with great fidelity to the musical exchanges in the score.
The approach only faltered in the penultimate scene, where Falstaff is captured by disguised townsfolk in the park. They loafed around the perimeter with flashlights and KKK hoods, he shuffled from foot to foot trailing a couple of ropes round his wrists. It looked as if everyone was waiting to be told what to do next. But perhaps that was the intention - this production's Falstaff avoids confronting the consequences of his behaviour all the way through.
The production itself may not be the greatest, but it was strongly performed. Maestri's enormous presence ensured his Falstaff was quite properly the centre. Saimir Pirgu's bright, lyrical Fenton was impressive - hints of JDF - despite a hint of strain on some top notes. Elisabeth Kulman was a subtle and intelligent Mrs. Quickly, and Ileana Tonca's girlish Nannetta was perfectly charming.
Marco Armiliato conducted competently, but was there some resistance? - the orchestra seemed to revert to type in the elegant, almost Straussian, wash of sound. Still, it's hard to complain about a performance of that quality.
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