Verdi's final boss energy: an opera about a washed-up knight who refuses to log off.
This 2013 Salzburg Festival performance of Falstaff, Giuseppe Verdis late masterwork and crowning achievement, features conductor Zubin Mehta and the Vienna Philharmonic. The staging thought up by Italian director Damiano Michieletto moves the action from a fictitious London to that special care home, the Casa Verdi, a place rich in memories of great days past and impressions of a real-time present. Ambrogio Maestri seems a tailor-made Falstaff. His physique is just right for the part, as are his powerful voice, flair for drama and feeling for the Verdi style. (New York Times)
Acting
Maestri was born to play this hungry, horny disaster.
Production
Casa Verdi staging: nursing home cosplay as meta-commentary.
Direction
Michieletto makes old men running around a room feel epic.
Director
Karina Fibich
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Verdi was nearly 80 when he wrote Falstaff, his first comic opera in fifty years, reportedly telling librettist Boito 'I am having fun!' like a man who'd earned it.
Casa Verdi in Milan still houses retired musicians; Michieletto's staging collapses Verdi's fictional England with the real institution's haunting, memory-laden corridors.
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