FALSTAFF

Director Damiano Michieletto has moved the action of Verdi's Falstaff from Windsor to the artists' retirement home in Italy that Verdi donated. There he lets a discarded singer dream of his glorious artistic life and former stage glory. According to critics, Ambrogio Maestri does this with virtuosity: "What does he care about the menu smells from the dining room with all the wheelchairs and walking frames? Reality is just an annoying retirement home suit, too narrow however for this grandiose, only unfortunately retired artist. So the old boy lies on the sofa and flies through the realm of his dreams. 

Flies to that time when the opera crowds were fond of him, when he was Falstaff, the shrewd hedonist and bankrupt virtuoso. His magnetism made the ladies weak in the knees, how beautiful it was! So the old boy plays right through the whole Verdi opera dreamlike."