It is to composer and librettist Arrigo Boito and his constant pestering of the octogenarian Verdi that there remained within him one last great comedy fighting to get out that we owe this absolute miracle of an opera. Produced in 1893 as Verdi turned 80 there is much in this masterpiece that can be identified as a modernist neoclassical work. The use of short motifs instead of long arioso melodic lines, the spry and reduced orchestral textures and the lack of a single 'stand and deliver' dramatic declamatory aria all serve to make this more of a 20th century work than an example of 19th century late-Romanticism.
Mirella Freni
Alice Ford
Barbara Bonney
Nannetta
Paul Plishka
Sir John Falstaff
Bruno Pola
Ford
Marilyn Horne
Mistress Quickly
Frank Lopardo
Fenton
Piero De Palma
Dr. Cajus
Anthony Laciura
Bardolfo
