Bibulous, fun-loving Sir John Falstaff fondly imagines himself to be irresistible to women, and writes identical love-letters to the two bourgeois housewives Alice Ford and Meg Page – not least with a view to scrounging some of their husbands’ money. The two wives discover his duplicity and decide to teach him a lesson. But their comic revenge strays more and more toward bitter earnest, comedy and tragedy look each other in the face and unveil a society which has been neglecting its morals, so that Falstaff is in the end not alone with his cuckoldry and the conclusion that “everything on earth is foolery and we are all of us the dupes”.

At over eighty the composer Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) demonstrated his unerring theatrical instincts one last time with this satirical social comedy of virtuoso ensembles culminating in a superlative final fugue.

 
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Giuseppe Verdi

FALSTAFF
Commedia lirica in three acts
Libretto by Arrigo Boito

 
In Italian with German surtitles
 

Musikalische Leitung Axel Kober
Inszenierung Michael Hampe
Bühne und Kostüme John Gunter
Chorleitung Gerhard Michalski
 
Falstaff Bruno Balmelli
Ford Laimonas Pautienius
Fenton Ovidiu Purcel
Cajus Bruce Rankin
Bardolfo Johannes Preißinger
Pistola Torben Jürgens
Alice Nataliya Kovalova
Nannetta Heidi Elisabeth Meier
Quickly Renée Morloc
Meg Page Sarah Ferede
Chor Chor der Deutschen Oper am Rhein
Orchester Düsseldorfer Symphoniker