“Everything in the world is a joke.
Man is born a
prankster;

In his brain
always wavering his
reason.

Each mortal
laughs at each other,

But laughs well who laughs
the final laugh.”

Giuseppe Verdi/Arrigo Boito,
end of the libretto of Falstaff

COMEDY
FARCE
BITTERSWEET
SHAKESPEARE

Libretto by Arrigo Boito

To help him pay his debts at the Garter Inn, the Knight Falstaff tries to seduce two rich women at the same time, Alice Ford and Meg Page. The latter, wishing to punish him and teach him a good lesson, set a trap in which the fat seducer is quick to fall…

We are in 1893 when the first listeners discover with pleasure, but astonishment, what will be the last theatrical coup of their favorite composer: a comedy! If Verdi decides to take up the pen again after Otello, it is thanks to his librettist of choice Arrigo Boito. The latter, in an abundant correspondence with the composer, managed to pass on to him the idea of a last master stroke oriented towards comedy, inspired by Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor… And Boito added that the “only way to end your career even better than with Otello, is to do Falstaff “.

Falstaff could have been one more opera, but it is not. Verdi had badly digested the failure of his only attempt at comedy, Un Giorno di Regno, in 1840. It was necessary to have a revenge, especially since Falstaff lent himself well to amusing scenes. Then, Verdi had always been attracted by the timeless work of Shakespeare and if the project of a King Lear had never succeeded, he had already succeeded Macbeth in 1847. But, above all, he had created with Otello one of the most accomplished masterpieces in the history of opera. He was sufficiently aware of this to consider Shakespeare as the ideal inspiration.

• LAST PERFORMANCE AT THE ORW
  NOVEMBER 2009
• PRODUCTION
  FONDAZIONE TEATRO REGIO DI PARMA  

PALAIS DES BEAUX-ARTS CHARLEROI
SAT. 16 MARCH
8PM