FALSTAFF

Maestro Daniele Rustioni conducts a superb cast led by baritone Michael Volle in his first Verdi role at the Met

A deeply human farce full of humor and genuine emotion, Verdi’s last opera is a splendid finale to an unparalleled career in the theater. The story is an amalgamation of scenes from Shakespeare, primarily drawn from The Merry Wives of Windsor, but when Robert Carsen directed the opera for the Met, he relocated the action to mid–20th-century England—an era when long-established social norms were rapidly changing and the aristocracy lost much of their wealth and influence. In this performance, baritone Michael Volle headlines Carsen’s raucous staging, bringing his signature portrayal of the roguish Sir John Falstaff to the Met for the first time. Maestro Daniele Rustioni takes the podium to lead a sterling ensemble cast that also features soprano Ailyn Pérez, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano, and contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux as the merry wives who deliver Falstaff’s comeuppance, with baritone Christopher Maltman as Ford and soprano Hera Hyesang Park and tenor Bogdan Volkov as the lovers Nannetta and Fenton.

“A superb cast brings out the comic ingenuity of Verdi’s swan song in Met’s FALSTAFF.” (New York Classical Review)

“Robert Carsen’s winning production … looks fresh and earns the kind of enthusiastic laughter rarely heard in an opera house …Volle has shown himself to be a Wagnerian of long, graceful focus. As Falstaff, he puts the noble grain of his voice to deliciously undignified use.” (New York Times)