BigList
Login / Sign up
Falstaff (1993)

Falstaff (1993)

Music
Release Date: 1993, January 1
Directors: Franco Zeffirelli, Brian Large
Countries: United States of America
Production: Deutsche Grammophon
Cast: Susan Graham, Anthony Laciura, Paul Plishka, James Courtney, Mirella Freni, Barbara Bonney, Frank Lopardo, Marilyn Horne, Bruno Pola, Piero De Palma, Carole Wright, Tim Willson

Overview:

It is to composer and librettist Arrigo Boito and his constant pestering of the octogenarian Verdi that there remained within him one last great comedy fighting to get out that we owe this absolute miracle of an opera. Produced in 1893 as Verdi turned 80 there is much in this masterpiece that can be identified as a modernist neoclassical work. The use of short motifs instead of long arioso melodic lines, the spry and reduced orchestral textures and the lack of a single 'stand and deliver' dramatic declamatory aria all serve to make this more of a 20th century work than an example of 19th century late-Romanticism.

Keywords:

opera