Word: falstaffs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Terrible are the humiliations that Shakespeare inflicts on the aging Sir John Falstaff. Stuffed into a hamper of dirty laundry to escape a jealous husband, the portly knight gets ignominiously flung into the Thames. "Oh, oh, oh," he finally cries as the supposedly merry wives of Windsor burn him with their tapers. In setting this black comedy to music, Verdi and his librettist, Arrigo Boito, degrade the hero still further. "Lord, make him impotent," the women chorus as everyone flails and pummels the fallen hero. And yet after his punishment on the stage of the Brooklyn Academy of Music last...
That was the most remarkable of the many striking effects in German director Peter Stein's production of Falstaff, with which the celebrated Welsh National Opera was making its American debut. But the applause that swept the amiably musty BAM theater was not just for Stein. Nor just for Donald Maxwell's passionate performance as Sir John. Nor even just for the smiling Princess of Wales, Princess Di herself, who appeared in a glowing white satin dress for the black-tie benefit. Also to be applauded and celebrated was the start of a new kind of opera season...
Cardiff, of course, is where the new Falstaff was born (last September), after the Welsh National Opera spent years courting Stein, who made his reputation at Berlin's famous Schaubuhne theater. Stein saw Falstaff as an intensely personal drama, clearly sexual and even slightly sadistic. "Hold your paunch, celebrate it," he instructed Maxwell at one point during rehearsals. "For Falstaff, it is not grossness, it is greatness, virility." Bearing out Epstein's point, the modest dimensions of the BAM theater enabled Stein to stage Verdi's last masterpiece as a kind of chamber work, with the stage action fast-moving...
...plot comes straight out of an "I Love Lucy" episode. Lucy and Ethel go Elizabethan in the wily duo of Mrs. Alice Ford (Martha Warren) and Mrs. Meg Page (Allison Charney). Scheming against their ungainly admirer. Sir John Falstaff (William O. Beeman). The two women inevitably draw their husbands into the affair. Accused of infidelity by her jealous husband (David Williams). Mrs. Ford belts out a couple of high C's in literally one of the highest points in the opera...
Warren's professionalism is wonderfully matched in William O. Beeman's performance as Falstaff. With his booming voice and formidable stature. Beeman brings authenticity to his role. His jocund mannerisms further add to the illusion...