Performer: Nicholas Crawley

In the first and last acts, ladies entered with a train still attached to a bolt of cloth, which was then cut to length by an attendant. Was this production brought to the stage in a great hurry, allowing no time for costume fittings? 

Bruno Ravella's fast-paced Falstaff for Garsington still has crucial space for pathos amid the comedy, with a notably subtle central performance from Henry Waddington.  

Even forty years after its world première in Rotterdam, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s new production of Philip Glass’s three-act opera in Basel has particularly timely relevance.