Olivia Fuchs' production of Falstaff is linked to the other two works in Opera North’s autumn calendar, Masque of Might and La rondine, in its adherence to guidance in the Theatre Green Book. Currently stocked sets, props and costumes will be recycled and carbon footprints will be minimal. This accounts for the battered old caravan which has been seen before and which dominates Leslie Travers' stage when Verdi's final opens. In front of it, the penniless fat knight reveals his cunning plan to seduce the wives of wealthy Windsor men, by sending them letters through his criminal companions which he thinks will lure them into bed.
In the title role, bass-baritone Henry Waddington is much more than a clownish self-deluded fat man, bringing subtlety and depth to the character, as intended by the brilliant librettist Arrigo Boito, who, along with the composer, was in love with Shakespeare, including in his source material the Henry IV plays as well as the frothier Merry Wives of Windsor. The late Amanda Holden was responsible for the translation of Boito’s words used in this production, a witty, realistic version sprinkled with rhyming couplets and amusing references, including one where a character says that there should be a new law passed in the Houses of Parliament which states that fat men should be taxed.
Not only an agile comic actor, with plenty of wide gesturing to go with his rich voice, Waddington could also become sympathetically pathetic after his downfall, which in this case is a dunking in the River Thames in a laundry basket, although the audience found his disgusted spitting out of water hilarious. His monologue at the end of Act 1 when he berates Bardolph and Pistol for not delivering the letters because of their “sense of honour”, calling them thieves, was very effective.
Waddington was in accomplished company. The targeted women are not fooled, of course, and in an Act 2 set in what can be assumed to be a 1980s tennis club, soprano Kate Royal was a sprightly Alice Ford, entirely engaged with her character, conveying playfulness and mischief in her voice. Mezzos Helen Évora as Meg Page and Louise Winter as Mistress Quickly were powerful performers with great poise, and soprano Isabelle Peters as the young lover Nannetta, daughter of the Fords, was charming, with an impressive ability to hold pure, long-lasting high notes. Her lover Fenton, wearing a 1980s T-shirt, was played by Egor Zhuravskii, a Russian-Ukrainian tenor with a remarkably clear, sweet voice.
When Falstaff was lured into Alice Ford’s spacious room, where that laundry basket was placed in front of the double bed, the stage business directed by Olivia Fuchs soon became reminiscent of the legendary Whitehall farces, with Royal skilfully skipping out of his lecherous grasp as he hoisted down his voluminous trousers. Baritone Richard Burkhard, as Alice’s husband Ford, was full of convincing outrage and murderous forcefulness as he burst into the room searching for the man with his wife, and a whole host of others swarmed everywhere, including tenor Colin Judson as Bardolph and Dean Robinson as Pistol, both superb performers who seemed a little neglected in these relatively minor parts. The searchers were followed by a couple of running policemen of the Keystone variety. It was beautifully organised chaos.
Act 3 was a triumph. Conducted by Garry Walker, the orchestra, after becoming used to the exact comic timing, adjusted adroitly to the changes in Verdi’s score. This helped create the right atmosphere of a haunted woodland, though this one was not really spooky, but an Elizabethan masque where characters wore elaborate costumes and headdresses and where members of the Opera North Chorus could lurk in the shadows as fairy folk. The final fugue, which must have been tricky to rehearse, performed in and out of the front-stage hanging ribbons, left the audience full of joy.
