VERDI: Falstaff.(Review)

VERDI: Falstaff

[] Martinpelto, Evans, James, Mingardo; Lafont, Palombi, Michaels-Moore; Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique, Gardiner. Text and translation. Philips 289 462 603-2

"The new Gardiner recording of Verdi? Don't you mean Monteverdi?" This was the response I received from more than one operaphile when I waxed enthusiastic about John Eliot Gardiner's latest release. Sound improbable? At the risk of sacrilege, Falstaff-lovers may wish to set aside their Toscanini and Karajan recordings and open their ears to Gardiner's sparkling take on this masterpiece.

Those familiar with Falstaff will know its salient features: complex and fast-paced ensembles, melodic word-painting specific to every character and situation, and orchestration that instigates and responds to the comic action. What's more, there's a virtual absence of Verdian stock motifs and reassuring cantabile. Since its 1893 premiere, audiences have been slow to warm to the intellectual style of Verdi's last opera. A dark cynicism seethes beneath its comedy. Reports from this season's productions of Falstaff at La Scala and Busseto suggested that the audience's enthusiasm felt slightly dutiful.

The intrepid Gardiner approaches Verdi's intellect with the intelligence he has applied for years to his recordings and performances of Bach, Handel and Mozart. He assembles a cast of singing musicians capable of realizing the wit not just of Arrigo Boito's literary adaptation of Shakespeare but of Verdi's layered musical commentary upon it. Jean-Philippe Lafont's Falstaff struts perceptibly through the musical scenery of his monologues. His massive voice sneers when he derides honor and fawns when he sings of love. Anthony Michaels-Moore contrasts beautifully as Ford, with a voice of more tenorial color than Lafont's. The two baritones' Act II dialogue is a highlight of the recording. The women shine in equal measure, their madrigal in Act I emerging as a miracle of precision. As Alice Ford, Hillevi Martinpelto is radiant; I've never heard a more accurate Alice than this, with ...