Falstaff

We must thank Arrigo Boito, friend, confident and librettist of Giuseppe Verdi, for a multitude of things, among which was his being able to persuade the composer to initiate, at 75 year of age, the creation of a new opera. With Falstaff, Verdi finally found the perfect material to construct what would not only be his last lyric creation, but also the last of the great Italian comic operas. Verdi launched himself into the composition with the ease and nonchalance of his youth, as though the comedy had liberated him from the aesthetic crisis of the opera at the end of the XIX century and had permitted him to write for the simple pleasure of doing so.

This explains how he injected musical life into a character determined to seduce two married women so that he could keep their husbands’ fortune. He was a man as stripped of any moral sentiment as he was captivating; a witty old man, having already navigated all the storms of a lifetime, he smiles with sarcasm and wisdom. Falstaff ends up being an opera that –when all is said and done- encourages us to laugh at life and at ourselves, raising an ode to hope and tolerance.

New production by the Teatro Real, in co-production with the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, the Opéra National de Bordeaux and Tokyo Nikikai Opera