Verdi: Falstaff

“Falstaff” is the only comic opera, as well as the last opera, of Verdi’s production. At 1893 “Falstaff” made his debut at the Teatro alla Scala accompanied by a great success. “Falstaff’s” score abounds in musical experimentation like the pseudo-symphonic sonata-form that opens the first act, the fugue buffa that closes the opera. “Falstaff” is the work of an amusing and amused Verdi. After all, as the final theme reads: “Everything in the world is a joke. Man was born a joker”. In this way John Eliot Gardiner together with stage director Sven-Eric Bechtolf are congenial to this witty opera after Shakespeare.