University of Hartford "H" Magazine - Winter 2019

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Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Verdi: Falstaff

12/11/2022 1:00 pm
12/11/2022 4:30 pm

 

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

Giuseppe Verdi's comic Falstaff (1893) is a marvelous finale to his career as a composer for the lyric stage. With an excellent libretto by Arrigo Boito, Verdi handled all the dramatic elements of Shakespeare's comedy with a mastery that surpassed anything he had written previously in his non-comedic works.

I have presented several different recordings of it since 1995, when you heard it with baritone Juan Pons starring in the title role (Sony Classical CDs), and again in 2007 on old Angel vinyl discs from 1956 (?) with the legendary Tito Gobbi as the amorous fat knight of Windsor town.

This Sunday I return to a CD recording I last aired on Sunday, February 6, 2005. This time it's baritone Michele Pertusi heard as old Sir John, with Sir Colin Davis conducting the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. The proprietary LSO Live record label released their Falstaff on two CDs in 2004.