Verdi's Shakespearean souffle fails to rise

OPERA SALZBURG FESTIVAL:
By RICHARD FAIRMAN

Three months down and nobody can have missed that this is the centenary of Verdi's death. Most opera houses are featuring at least one or two of his operas and the favourite choice has appropriately been Verdi's final opera, Falstaff, which premiered in 1893.
As the Salzburg Easter festival only ever features one opera, Falstaff it is. But the festival has managed to go one better than its competitors: by offering a production that updates the opera to the end of the 19th century it focuses even more intently on Verdi at the end of his life - even if the opera itself does not take too kindly to being uprooted.
At the opening night on Saturday everything seems to have gone down satisfactorily with the jetset audience. While the main summer festival has been in the grip of the reforming Gerard Mortier, who loves nothing better than to provoke some boos, the regulars are probably relieved that the Easter festival remains safely in the hands of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
As artistic director, Claudio Abbado made this year's choice of Falstaff. He has conducted the opera previously at the Staatsoper in Berlin, but Abbado is not one to rush things - there are still major Verdi operas he has yet to tackle - so it is not surprising to find him returning to Falstaff, first here, and then for a recording.
As with all his Verdi, this was a marvellously cultivated performance. Some conductors may take their cue from Shakespeare's fat knight and turn in a rude and rumbustious farce, but not Abbado. The music here was light and swift, pausing only to lavish affection on a lyrical phrase here and there. From the Berlin Philharmonic there was not one vulgar sound. Verdi's miraculous orchestration can rarely have been played to such a high standard.
The good news about Declan Donnellan's production was that it complemented Abbado's fastidious approach to the music. What we saw on stage was a late Victorian comedy of manners. No hearty guffaws here, in fact barely a laugh was raised the whole evening, which may be the penalty for playing a wordy Italian comedy to a mostly German-speaking audience without surtitles.
To pep up the big scenes, Donnellan imports half an English constabulary with truncheons at the ready and the girls of a local ballet school, but to little avail. There was a half-baked feeling to the whole performance, as though the show was under-rehearsed and the singers still tentative - the ensemble between stage and pit kept coming adrift. The light souffle of a comedy that must have been intended refused to rise.
In practical terms, Nick Ormerod's designs work flexibly enough, using movable panels to change the set quickly from Falstaff's homely living-room to the Fords' mock-Tudor mansion. But it was disappointing that the final scene in Windsor forest had not a wisp of magic about it.
In keeping with the general tone, Ruggero Raimondi's Falstaff was not really a figure of fun to be laughed at or pitied. Tall and aristocratic, he was merely the bewhiskered old army man, curled up for retirement in his favourite red velvet armchair with a box of chocolates, though Raimondi still has enough voice to sing the role.
The cast included a good number of Italian singers - doubtless Abbado's influence - led by Carmela Remigio and Lucio Gallo as the Fords, both singing with lively and well-focused voices. Stella Doufexis made little of Meg Page. Larissa Diadkova turned Mrs Quickly into a well-meaning auntie, thoughtfully knitting Falstaff a long woolly scarf, though her rasping chest notes pointed to other Verdi roles. Dorothea Roschmann does not have the right personality for bright little Nannetta, but Massimo Giordano with his light Italian tenor and shy smile was perfection as Fenton, her young tennis partner. Opera companies should be thinking of putting on Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore for him.
This Falstaff will be back at the main Salzburg festival in the summer. Next year's Easter festival will have Parsifal as the opera, conducted by Abbado and with Peter Stein as producer, which should be a big event.
Richard Fairman

Berliner Philharmoniker
Conductor: Claudio Abbado