Falstaff

Giuseppe Verdi's final opera—his last based on Shakespeare (principally The Merry Wives of Windsor)—is a work of warmth as well as humor, deserving far better than this rough and coarse 2010 staging from the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern. Bernd Weikl directs and takes the title role of the aging, larger-than-life knight who tries to solve his financial problems by romancing two well-off ladies and cuckolding their husbands—with farcically humiliating results. Unfortunately, his voice no longer commands the firmness and richness the part demands, and his staging is crudely comic, with many puzzling touches (why, for instance, does someone in a gorilla suit show up in the first-act finale and extract a bra from the orchestra pit?). The other soloists are at best adequate, and the Pfalztheater orchestra sounds thin under the vigorous but unsubtle leadership of Uwe Sandner—at least in PCM stereo (the only format offered here). Julia Holewik's garish modern costumes and Thomas Dörfler's unattractive set—which features not only windows that the singers can open Laugh-In style, but also paintings of celebrities (Shakespeare, Verdi, and Pavarotti, among others)—only add to the disappointment. A better choice here would be the exuberant Glyndebourne staging (VL-7/10). Not recommended. (F. Swietek)