FALSTAFF

26 June - 18 July 2027

Bruno Ravella’s celebrated production from 2018 returns with conductor Alexander Joel making his Garsington Opera debut. A regular on the opera podiums of Europe, he will conduct the Philharmonia in Verdi’s final opera, a dazzlingly inventive display of joyous humour.

At the heart of the work is the magnificent, ludicrously vain and ever hopeful Sir John Falstaff. Larger than life in every sense, he lives on his wits, exults in his own appetites and attempts to seduce pretty much anyone who crosses his path.

Falstaff is an amalgamation of scenes from different plays by Shakespeare, whom Verdi admired above all writers. With the help of his brilliant librettist Arrigo Boito, Verdi, at the age of 80, finally achieved his goal of composing a successful comedy. As the saying goes, ‘Shakespeare invented Falstaff, Verdi made him immortal’.

Sung in Italian with English supertitles