'Falstaff', end of party and endearing farewell

PalmaEnd of the festival, major festival, with a truly luxurious Falstaff, which, moreover, we will surely never forget, because it is the last opera directed by Josep Pons as artistic director of the Gran Teatre del Liceu. Therefore, a heartfelt farewell to someone who for 14 seasons has given us many memorable evenings. One of them, without a doubt, this third performance, the second of the first cast of Giuseppe Verdi's last opera. He said he was writing it just for fun. His librettist, the indispensable Arrigo Boito, said that Requiem and the previous opera, Othello. Now we will not enter into the diatribe of rankings, which go against the essence of art, but it is no less true that it does not have the appeal of many others by the master of Busseto in everyone's memory. In any case, more or less commercial, what is not in doubt is that it is an indisputable masterpiece. A good proof is the production of the Teatro Real, of La Monnaie de Brussels, of the Opéra National de Bordeaux and of the Tokyo Nikkita Opera Foundation, directed by Laurent Pelly, which we were able to see in Madrid six seasons ago.It is, without a doubt, a real privilege to be able to enjoy it with the best possible Falstaff, Luca Salsi, and without forgetting that it is Ambroggio Maestri who is also responsible for interpreting the famous character, so celebrated that he makes an appearance in three of Shakespeare's plays, in the two of Henry IV and at The Merry Wives of Windsor, immortalized by Orson Welles in cinema. Although it is a character as comical as it is pathetic, the simplest thing would be to turn him into a caricature, but Pelly hits the right tone and his characteristics become a very accurate portrait with much more depth and substance than could be guessed at first glance. Salsi, immeasurable, from beginning to end, from head to toe, brilliant with the declaration of principles of the braggart, Honor! Thieves!, an explosion of contrasts with which the function opens. The bar, set very high. The others did not lower the level, such as Lucas Maechem's Fenton, with the same dose of stage presence as his “opponent”. Serena Sáenz's Nannetta and Carolina López Moreno's Alice, impeccable and with the grace that both characters need. All compensated, they all become the perfect complement to each other, but it must be said that Daniela Barcelona's Quickly had added value. With each intervention, she was funnier than the previous one. A choral work with an almost perfect distribution of protagonism and with a production in which everything was just right. As expected, Josep Pons, had already tidied up any possible small imbalance from the opening night, offering an impeccable reading of a score with a lot of harmonic diversity, which concludes with the presence of the choir, as minimal as it is effective.