Falstaff

Lead Donor of the GNO

The Greek National Opera revives the highly successful production of the comic opera Falstaff for six performances at the Stavros Niarchos Hall. Verdi’s swan song, based on Shakespeare’s comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor, is brought back to life in a staging by distinguished director and Artistic Director of the UK’s famous Glyndebourne Opera Festival, Stephen Langridge, which was first presented by the GNO during the 2022/23 season.

Central to the action is the washed-up old knight Sir John Falstaff, whose romantic misadventures make him a laughingstock in the provincial society of his small town. In the end, after a series of tragicomic situations have unfolded, all the work’s characters sing the following refrain together: “All the world’s a jest… but whoever laughs last, laughs best.”

Verdi surprised everyone with his final opera, Falstaff, as not many believed the then 80-year-old composer had another major work in him (and a comedy at that!) following the huge success of his Otello (1887). After his adaptation of the plays Macbeth and Othello, Verdi turned to Shakespeare one final time and picked out a comedy: The Merry Wives of Windsor. The opera has justly been called a masterpiece of the genre for its expressive economy and concise form – for its composer’s ability to encapsulate entire characters and situations with a single musical phrase.

Langridge, who was appointed Artistic Director of the UK’s renowned Glyndebourne Opera Festival in 2019, shifted the setting of Falstaff’s story to 1930s England, to a time dominated by the absurdity of a social hierarchy that bordered on feudalism. The director notes: “Our production is set in England in the 1930s. A time between the wars (Falstaff was an old soldier), with a scandalous Prince of Wales (like Hal in Henry IV) who will briefly become King Edward VIII, and a time when the hierarchies are rigid, with social class more respected than money. Falstaff is based on Shakespeare’s only fully English comedy, but the end is pure Verdi / Boito. ‘Tutto nel mondo è burla’ (All the world’s a jest) is their conclusion – and when we look around us at today’s chaotic world, we can only agree, and then perhaps head off to the pub for a pint of warm ale and a laugh with Sir John!”