Falstaff

Published Tuesday 4 March 2008 at 15:40 by Jon Holliday

When Peter Stein’s 1988 acclaimed staging of Verdi’s final masterpiece was revived in 1993, the young Bryn Terfel made one of his first Welsh National Opera appearances as Ford. Now a world famous superstar, he brings to his homeland his celebrated portrayal of Shakespeare’s most loveable rogue.

From curtain up to curtain down, the sheer size and theatricality of Terfel’s interpretation of this cowardly glutton, this bald-headed blowhard, this irascible charmer ever in pursuit of wine, women and vast quantities of good food, is quite mesmerising. His exuberant Falstaff is so richly characterised and so magnificently sung that, unsurprisingly, he dominates throughout.

Yet this is essentially an ensemble production with group chemistry self-evident. The women are positive personalities, ahead of the game at every twist and turn, gleefully engineering their vain lardbucket of a would-be seducer to his humiliating comeuppance. And what a strong, stylish band they are.

Claire Ormshaw and Rhys Meirion, as the lovers Nannetta and Fenton, combine joyously, while Christopher Purves projects an excellent Ford.

Julian Close and Neil Jenkins are suitably dissolute as Pistol and Bardolph, with Anthony Mee impressing as the outraged Caius. The chorus is in rousing and lively form, with Isaac Marks an eye-catching, diminutive Page to the old reprobate.

Carlo Rizzi conducts a thrilling account with all the zest for life this comic opera demands, bringing out the sheer vivacity of that life-enhancing fugue finale with its compassionate verdict that all the world’s a joke and he who laughs last laughs best. That surely could be Terfel, still chuckling in his well-rounded belly as he soars heavenward.