Review: Soaring sopranos and fat jokes make 'Falstaff' a very merry season finale for Arizona Opera
Arizona Opera’s season finale of “Falstaff” celebrates the work’s Shakespearean inspiration with a lovely set re-creating the Globe Theatre, complete with audience members on stage.
One difference from Elizabethan times is that the “groundlings” (those not in the balconies) don’t have to stand, but they are impressed into service during the performance, which is just one of many surprises in store in an entertaining staging by director Chuck Hudson.
Verdi’s opera, with an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito packed with 19th-century fat jokes, is based on “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” The title character is the corpulent knight who hatches a plan to seduce two upstanding matrons in order to raid their husbands’ coffers. The merry wives, Alice and Meg, aren’t the least tempted but devise their own stratagem to humiliate their would-be wooer.
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Bass-baritone Craig Colclough plays Falstaff with enormous pillows strapped to his body and a ridiculous frizzy wig and bald pate. And even though his character is the (amply padded) butt of most of the jokes, Colclough is also the undisputed star of the show, mixing expert slapstick with virtuosic renditions of arias about the joys of alcohol, the uselessness of “honor” and the virile power of his own bulging belly.
The comedy gets a boost from the costumes designed by CeCe Sickler, as when Falstaff “pretties himself up” in an orange-and-green plaid set off with a green bowtie and an enormous ruby-red codpiece.
The entire cast is excellent, with standout performances by sopranos Karen Slack as Alice and Heather Phillips as her daughter Nannetta, who gets to sing the opera’s prettiest arias as well as some wonderfully flirtatious duets with Javier Abreu as her suitor Fenton.
In addition to serving up a delightsome dessert for the 2015-16 season, “Falstaff” is also the farewell production for Arizona Opera’s general director, Ryan Taylor. He is moving on to lead Minnesota Opera after three years in the top job here, during which he not only reversed the Phoenix-based company’s financial fortunes but also pushed the artistic envelope by tackling contemporary operas such as this season’s lush magical-realist “Florencia en el Amazonas.”
His departure leaves a giant question mark hanging over a company that has had its share of ups and downs, but this crowd-pleasing and musically astute performance of “Flagstaff” definitely sends him off on a high note.
Reach the reviewer at kerry.lengel@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4896. Follow him at facebook.com/LengelOnTheater and twitter.com/KerryLengel.
Arizona Opera: ‘Falstaff’
Reviewed Friday, April 1. Remaining performances: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 2, and 2 p.m. Sunday, April 3. Symphony Hall, 75 N. Second St., Phoenix. $25-$135. 602-266-7464, azopera.org.
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