Customer Reviews

Verdi - Falstaff - Levine, Zeffirelli, The Metropolitan Opera [VHS]

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This may be Brian Large's finest opera video of a live performance yet. Taped October 10, 1992, the cast features
Mirella Freni, Barbara Bonney, Marilyn Horne, Susan Graham;
Paul Plishka, Frank Lopardo, Bruno Pola.

It is a very balanced cast, a beautiful production by Franco Zeffirelli, and a joy to watch. The singers are all excellent and the ensembles impeccable. What more could one want? Freni is charming as Ford's wife, Alice. Horne is amusing and sprightly as Dame Quickly, Bonney sings with purity and is magical in the last act forest scene, riding in on a white horse. As her lover, Frank Lopardo is perhaps too straight-forward and blunt, lacking charm, but he looks the part and sings well. Additionally, a young Susan Graham is a charming Meg. Pola is big-voiced and the properly offended, jealous husband. Perhaps best of all is Plishka's Falstaff, full of telling gestures and hilarious facial expressions. His eyebrows raising and lowering in sync with his thoughts and words, his feet mincing around the stage in jovial delight. His resonant bass voice etching the phrases expertly. Plishka displays a lifetime of experience in the theatre. He is always using gesture and movement which perfectly enhabit the character and make him live.

This Met video conveys all the joyous spirit of Verdi's final opera. The sumptuous Elizabethan sets and costumes of the Franco Zeffirelli production are beautiful. The cast works together as a spirited ensmble, helped along by frequent visual jokes and lively stage business. Paul Plishka is not my first choice for the role of Falstaff: Falstaff is a baritone role, and Plishka is really a bass. But his grizzled voice, though not the most polished or mellifluous instrument, certainly conveys the character of the rascally old knight, and he acts the part wonderfully. The only weak member in the rest of the cast, in my mind, is Bruno Pola as Ford: his timber is rather unattractive and his acting skills are not on the level of the rest of the cast. James Levine leads the Met opera orchestra in a spirited reading of Verdi's subtle, quicksilver score.

Hey, Amazon---

There is a small error in this listing. This wasn't don in 1964. It was don in 1994--from the Metropolitan Opera.