Word: falstaffs
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Charming, schmaltzy, waltz-prone Vienna flips for charming, schmaltzy waltz-prone Leonard Bernstein. In 1966, he conducted a rousing Falstaff at the Staatsoper, and last year he presented Mahler's Second Symphony, in a performance that seemed more authentically Viennese than anything since the days of Bruno Walter. Then, last week, there was Lenny again, preparing to conduct that most Viennese of operas, Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier. He professed to be terrified. "Every Vienna taxi driver knows Rosenkavalier as well as he does the national anthem," said Bernstein, adding with a little Viennese exaggeration...
...entire production herself. In recent seasons she has frequently done both, demonstrating the versatility as well as the power of her portrayals by encompassing the quirky pathos of the aged countess in Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades, the bawdy wit of Mistress Quickly in Verdi's Falstaff, the blood-crazed wrath of Klytemnestra in Strauss's Elektra...
...Falstaff by Orson Wells. The best "Shakespeare film" ever made, Welles' adaptions tells Henry IV's story largely from Falstaff's' point-of-view. In distilling material from several plays, Welles undermines traditional concepts of character, and his interpretation is dark: Falstaff, played brilliantly by Welles, ultimately becomes a serious and pathetic figure; Keith Baxter's Hal knows the inevitability of his future and its consequences earlier than one would think from reading the texts. Welles' camerawork and lighting have never been more extraordinary, or less self-conscious; the spine-chilling battle must, along with the shower sequence in Psycho...
...cast is an astounding collection of pure voices attached to good actors. Heading the bill is the English baritone Peter Glossop who makes a warm graceful Falstaff and whose voices takes on the precariously high-pitched part with expansive ease. Ronald Hedlund, who plays Ford, has a wonderful, thick baritone which contrasts with Glossop's, even when the two men are singing in exactly the same range. The women too are superb with Beverly Bower and Carole Boaarde as stand-outs...
...This Falstaff is certainly as good, count for count, as the famous Bernstein-Zefferalli job done at the Met a few years ago. Unfortunately the Company will do it only once more, on February 23. Maybe some civic-minded group will picket for more performances...