Product Details

• Actors: Brian Large, Renato Bruson, Leo Nucci, Dalmacio Gonzalez, Michael Sells
• Format: Classical, Color, NTSC
• Subtitles: English
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Kultur Video
• VHS Release Date: May 25, 1999
• Run Time: 139 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: 0769720358
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #270,738 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Verdi's last opera (and only his second comedy) is one of the glories of the repertoire and one of history's finest operatic adaptations of Shakespearean material. It has fared well in video recordings, and this sparkling production ranks with the best.

It is very much an ensemble performance, which is what the music needs and conductor Carlo Maria Giulini demands. But there are excellent individual performances, singing and acting. Renato Bruson fits smoothly into the title role of an aging, corpulent adventurer who tries to seduce two women simultaneously with the same love note. Lucia Valentini-Terrani is funny as the wily Mistress Quickly, Katia Ricciareli is sweet in voice and temperament as Alice Ford, Leo Nucci is her distraught husband. Barbara Hendricks and Dalmacio Gonzales are an appealing couple as the young lovers Nanetta and Fenton.

The sets and costumes create a proper Elizabethan atmosphere, and Giulini's conducting has a fine balance of lightness and discipline. --Joe McLellan

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fond and brilliant farewell from Verdi., October 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Verdi - Falstaff / Giulini, Bruson, Ricciarelli, Nucci, Royal Opera Covent Garden [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I've been an opera chorister for four years now, performing in seven operas, four of them by Verdi: Rigoletto, Aida, Macbeth, and Un Ballo in Maschera. Very romantic as well as tragic; who would have thought that Verdi would end his composing career with such a brilliant comedy! I listened to the recording first (it has the same cast as this video), and actually found myself laughing at the sophisticated wit of composer, conducter and singers alike. Note that the conducter overlooked the entire production (and I mean entire, from staging to whatever); and he was making a return after a long hiatus from opera! Renato Bruson is ideal as Falstaff: prideful, bumbling, and charming to boot. The lovely leading ladies sparkle with intelligence and womanly wiles, the men with suspicion (except for the lead tenor, amourous to the end). This filmed performance is also emotional in its value, as the late, gifted mezzo Lucia Valentini-Terrani glows as Dame Quickly. What also impresses me about this opera is that moments in the score do sound English! (This is, after all, an adaption of Shakespear's Merry Wives of Windsor.) A treat from beginning to end, for the eyes, ears, and spirit. As Falstaff says, "Va, vecchio John (Go on, old John)!"