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Falstaff

Falstaff

  • Overview
  • Cast
  • Crew
  • Recommendations

Status

Released

Release Date

Jan 1, 1993

Runtime

2h 6m

Genres

Music

User Score

82%

Original Title

Falstaff

Production Companies

Deutsche Grammophon

Director

Franco Zeffirelli

Description

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.