Not quite nobility and typically not a part of the royal court, a knight of the Middle Ages enjoyed the freedom conferred by a certain but not excessive status, whereby a sanctioned illicitness (see “courtly love”) came with the territory. Despite all this, in the opening scenes of Verdi’s Falstaff—the composer’s final work, now onstage in an LA Opera production at the Music Center—it’s sometimes hard to remember the title character’s rank. Corpulent and dissolute, Sir John Falstaff (Craig Colclough) rolls out of an untidy bed in a stupor brought on by the previous night’s debauch, joined in agony by compatriots Bardolfo (Yuntong Han) and Pistola (Vinícius Costa). In a derelict setting—a roadside inn—that resembles a flop house, the trio orders more drinks in a spirit less hair-of-the-dog than maintenance of a continuous state of inebriation. Finding himself tapped out and unable to pay the bill of fare, Falstaff schemes, via letters of courtship, to separate a couple Merry Wives of Windsor from their cash.
If Falstaff grows thin
He’ll no longer be himself, no one will love him
In this paunch
Are a thousand tongues
proclaiming my name!…
[Touching his abdomen]
This is my kingdom.
I mean to extend it.
But it is time to sharpen our wits
Enter Alice Ford (Nicole Heaston) and Meg Page (Sarah Saturnino), along with Alice’s daughter Nannetta (Deanna Breiwick) and their trusted associate Mistress Quickly (Hyona Kim), the tavern hostess. After receiving the letters, the quartet of women—along with Alice’s jealous husband Ford (Ernesto Petti), Nannetta’s suitor Fenton (Anthony León), and the hapless Dr. Caius (Nathan Bowles)—plot Falstaff’s comeuppance by means of a series of ingenious disguises and maneuvers. In this operatic marvel of comic invention, where nearly every line of the libretto is some form of false flattery or narcissistic folly, the fact that a few of the plotters become trapped in their own nets should come as no surprise.
After its triumphant 1893 La Scala premiere and initial international engagements, Verdi’s opera fell out of favor, perhaps because the work seems to lack the kind of stand-alone arias upon which a diva might extend her legend. Nevertheless, Falstaff’s duets with Mistress Quickly and then Ford are peerless, and conductors such as Toscanini, von Karajan, Solti, and Bernstein all recognized the work’s through line of musical majesty and advocated for its return to the repertoire. As the penultimate production of James Conlon’s tenure as LA Opera Music Director, Falstaff will close this weekend under his baton. See info and links below.
FALSTAFF
LA Opera
Conducted by James Conlon
Final performance
May 10 at 2 pm
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
135 North Grand Avenue, downtown Los Angeles
Italian/English translation by Lynnette Owens, Lyrical Opera Theater.
lyricaloperatheater.com/Falstaff
Giuseppi Verdi, Falstaff, LA Opera, April 18–May 10, 2026, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, from top: Vinícius Costa, Craig Colclough, and Yuntong Han; Nicole Heaston; Sarah Saturnino, Deanna Breiwick, Hyona Kim, and Heaston; Kim and Colclough; Breiwick and Anthony León; (from foreground left) Han, Nathan Bowles, Colclough, Ernesto Petti, and Costa; Saturnino, Heaston, and Kim with Colclough (in basket); Petti; Breiwick.
Photos by Cory Weaver, courtesy and © LA Opera.
