Glyndebourne
Verdi's Falstaff at Glyndebourne is not to be missed. A revival of Carl Ebert's 1955 Edinburgh Festival production, there is very little smell of moth-balls hanging about it—which, since it is an opera made or marred by production and ensemble, is just as well; both are here (apart from the almost unproducible last scene) impec- cable. Geraint Evans is an outstandingly good Knight, full of joie de vivre and (strangely) dignity. He will certainly get even better when the marvellous but difficult monologue in the first act loses its terrors, and when the weather does not roast him slowly in his artificial fat. Of the women Oralia Dominguez as Quickly was an easy favourite but the rest were more than adequate. On the first night Gui and the Royal Philharmonic did not seem to be taking the score altogether in their stride, but that was no doubt the heat.
H. F.
Previous page
