At the Teatro di San Carlo, Laurent Pelly’s staging of Verdi’s final masterpiece Falstaff proves to be a severe test – one passed with flying colours – displaying a precise balance between word, gesture and voice, while at the same time averting any strain on the flawless comic mechanism forged by the Verdi-Boito partnership. The co-production (Teatro Real, La Monnaie, Opéra national de Bordeaux and the Tokyo Nikikai Opera Foundation) finds in Naples an effective and paradigmatic realisation, fostered by a felicitous rapport between pit, stage and performers.
Pelly’s staging reveals lucidity and measured rigour, steering clear of the temptations of facile comedy or easy mugging in favour of genuine stage truth. The director constructs a precise dramaturgical machine in which laughter arises organically from the authenticity of character and the exactness of physical action, without ever relinquishing rhythmic control. Within this vision, where stage movement occasionally hints at the idiom of musical theatre (tinged, however, with ironic melancholy), Falstaff is not reduced to an abstract mask, but embodied as a man embedded in a social context that first judges him, then punishes him and finally unmasks him.
Barbara de Limburg’s sets, essential yet visually robust, expand and contract the space in keeping with the titular knight’s ego, plastically highlighting the contrast between Falstaff’s unruly, debased world and the rigid bourgeois conformism of the Ford household. The result is a lucid visual framework in which costumes and lighting support the action without superfluous decoration, ensuring narrative agility entirely free of blemish.
From the Neapolitan podium, Marco Armiliato opted for a direction in close adherence to Verdi’s score, sheltered from arbitrary license. The agogics followed the scenic flow, avoiding effects for their own sake and restoring to Verdi’s masterpiece its intrinsic nature as music theatre in constant becoming, where word and sound fuse with prodigious exactitude. Flexible tempi, carefully shaped dynamics, and an impeccable balance between stage and the San Carlo Orchestra – admirable for its ductility and cohesion across all sections – yielded a transparent reading, happily devoid of caricatural indulgence or timbral forcing.
Within this solid, finely calibrated amalgam Luca Salsi’s Falstaff stood out, endowing the role with notable depth and meticulous characterisation. With a firm voice and precise phrasing, never self-indulgent, the baritone commanded the stage with effortless naturalness, keeping a prudent distance from histrionic excesses to offer a figure arrogant yet not caricatured, defeated yet not destroyed – tinged with an undertone of unease that lends authenticity and profound humanity to the part.
Anita Rachvelishvili’s return as Mistress Quickly was marked by charismatic authority: surpassing some recent appearances that were less sharply focused, the mezzo-soprano here displayed excellent form, drawing on a deep timbre, ample vocal substance and unfailing diction to chisel an incisive performance that gains weight with every entrance.
Maria Agresta shaped an Alice Ford of refined phrasing and seasoned musicality, serving as the pivot of the female quartet unified in timbre and theatrical intelligence. Alongside her, Ernesto Petti proved a credible Ford in every vocal and dramatic inflexion, from grotesque withdrawal to the most acute and tormented stirrings of jealousy.
Also noteworthy were Caterina Piva, who offered a measured Meg Page well blended within the female quartet, vocally homogeneous and scenically engaged, and Gregory Bonfatti’s Dr Caius, distinguished by precise diction and a dry characterisation. Finally, the Bardolfo-Pistola pairing was effective: Enrico Casari and Piotr Micinski constructed a credible, finely balanced stage interplay, with complementary timbres and an interaction that sustained the unfolding action with intelligent comedy.
A felicitous directorial choice brought to the fore the ‘candour’ of the young couple, Francesco Demuro’s Fenton and Désirée Giove’s Nannetta, who shone for their freshness of emission and touching lyricism, infusing the nocturnal idyll of the Windsor Forest scene with poetic intensity and a delicate suspension from the bustling vocality Verdi assigns to the other characters. Crowning the evening’s success was the San Carlo Chorus, whose rhythmic precision and scenic commitment contributed to an artistic result of stylistic homogeneity and flawless technical stature.
