Further performances will take place on Thursday 05 October, Saturday 14 October and Saturday 21 October , all at 7 p.m. Saturday 7 October and Wednesday 25 October are at 2 p.m.
“Nothing ever goes in the bin,” is this Autumn’s mantra for Laura Hart, Opera North’s Production Office Co-ordinator. Sustainability lies at the heart of all the Company’s thinking at every stage for each of the three forthcoming productions. Most noteworthy, perhaps, for Leslie Travers‘ set for the opening Falstaff, are the deer antlers – chandeliers, abstracted forest and elaborate chairs – shed from the herd at Harewood House – and a magnificent 1970s caravan, Falstaff’s home, sourced from The Myrtle Tavern in suburban Meanwood. Vests and braces, oversized lampshades and undersized tennis rackets, large cassette players and small television sets all date the action perfectly.
It is fitting, of course, that the choice for this first production of Opera North’s new eco-focused season should be the crowning glory of one of Opera’s greatest geniuses: Joe Green, himself. A creation from his eightieth year, Falstaff was Giuseppe Verdi’s last opera and only comedy, if we discount Un Giorno Di Regno, a failure of a contractual obligation completed in the wake of the death of his wife and both an infant daughter and baby son nearly sixty years before. The composer had already set Shakespeare in both Macbeth and Otello, but here was something quite new in his approach: a commedia lirica with original characters in place of comic stereotypes and with closed, through-composed numbers in a conversational style, rather that the stock comedic set-pieces of opera buffa.
“Falstaffian” has entered the language to infer corpulence, jollity and debauchery, and Shakespeare thought him enough of a key theatrical figure as to include him in no fewer than four plays. Orson Welles declared Falstaff to be “Shakespeare’s greatest creation” and he remains an abiding fascination for musical characterisation as well. Verdi’s summation captures all this and the ageing knight’s amorous scheming deservedly ends in failure, but, by the last Act, a similarly aged composer elicits from us a genuinely affectionate sympathy, truly touching … a loveable rogue whom we may all embrace (whilst keeping a judicious eye on one’s wallet).
Kate Royal‘s Alice Ford, the gravitational centre for Sir John’s attentions, provides the guile and wit, in suitably nimble, assured vocals, to keep a deluded knight and a jealous husband at bay. Colin Judson‘s Bardolph and Dean Robinson‘s Pistol, ostensibly Falstaff’s boon companions, but whose comradely loyalties are constantly for hire to the highest bidder, emanate the insincerity of the spiv with flashy overdressing and an underhand moral code. In Verdi’s and librettist Boito’s adaptation, Louise Winter‘s Mistress Quickly takes on a more prominent role in Falstaff’s downfall than Shakespeare ascribes. Blessed with extraordinary vocal flexibility, with a top range of noteworthy beauty, she has such assurance in her low register as to make it an indispensable feature in her comedic moments.
The parallel romantic interest of Egor Zhuyravskii‘s ardent Fenton and Isabelle Peters‘ receptive Nannetta Ford is given the time to triumph against the unwanted interest of Paul Nilon‘s rather desperate Doctor Caius. When young love overcomes Richard Burkhard‘s Ford’s plan to marry his daughter to the older man, it is Henry Waddington‘s Falstaff’s turn to call him the fool.
His is a signature portrayal of one of English theatre’s major characters. A putative swain with his best years long behind him, he still claims “an appetite voracious for all things curvaceous”. Transparent in his subtlety, conspicuous in his cunning, boastful of his romancing prowess, only then to cower petrified behind a screen, fearful of having been discovered in the act, he embodies the swagger and comic failure of the dilapidated knight perfectly. With crisp diction and a resonant, warm vocal delivery, his portrayal alone is worth the price of a seat.
Verdi’s brisk pacing for the action enables conductor Garry Walker to have the orchestra on full alert throughout; the brass, in particular, in splendid form.
Sung in English, nevertheless, with English titles.
Feature photograph: Richard Burkhard as Ford, Henry Waddington as Falstaff and Kate Royal as Alice Ford with members of the Chorus of Opera North.
Conductor Garry Walker, Director Olivia Fuchs, Set Designer Leslie Travers, Costume Designer Gabrielle Dalton, Lighting Designers Paule Constable/ Ben Pickersgill.
All photography: credit Richard H Smith
