Written at the end of his illustrious career, Falstaff was Verdi’s final opera and his only comedy. An operatic adaptation of Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor, the bittersweet comedy is a tribute to Sir John Falstaff, an aging giant of a very human man facing the autumn of his life.

The design/directing team chose to embrace the historical period setting and place the action in an autumnal landscape. The staging owes a great deal to the commedia dell’arte and much of the high and low humor, chase scenes and comedic set ups rely on the physical environment and four key objects: a love letter, a folding screen, a laundry basket, and Hearn’s Oak, an ancient “haunted” tree. This production was my second Falstaff and my favorite of the two.