[Met Performance] CID:205640



Falstaff
Metropolitan Opera House, Sat, March 5, 1966




Falstaff (94)
Giuseppe Verdi | Arrigo Boito
Sir John Falstaff
Tito Gobbi

Alice Ford
Pilar Lorengar

Ford
Frank Guarrera

Dame Quickly
Lili Chookasian

Nannetta
Judith Raskin

Fenton
Luigi Alva

Meg Page
Mildred Miller

Dr. Cajus
Mariano Caruso

Bardolfo
Andrea Velis

Pistola
Norman Scott

Mistress of the Inn
Rae Calitri

Innkeeper
Thomas Powell


Conductor
Joseph Rosenstock







Review 1:

Review of Irving Kolodin in the March 19, 1966 issue of the Saturday

Tito Gobbi's long-awaited first Falstaff in Verdi's comic masterpiece suggested, on its appearance recently at the Metropolitan, that it was perhaps too long awaited. Not only has time worked against the quality as well as the variety of the vocal sound this fine artist has to dispose in such an evening-long role, but it also has worked against his kind of classical Italian approach - grotesque, overstuffed, essentially buffo - to the character of Sir John. From the first, Gobbi's emphasis was on the bulk rather than the substance of the man beneath the flesh, and as time progressed he tended to make him pathetic rather than merely foolish. There were any number of small touches of artistic imagination (especially where the text was concerned) but they all dealt with Falstaff, cavaliere rather than Knight.

What it might have been under the shaping hand of Franco Zeffirelli one can only speculate (a mismatch, probably); but the sad fact is this production retains very little of that imaginative stage director's influence and, as executed by Joseph Rosenstock, even less of Leonard Bernstein's musical leadership. Lili Chookasian, as Mrs. Quickly, dwelt on every note as though she were singing Azucena, Pilar Lorengar spread sound far from an even line as Alicia, and Mildred Miller's Meg was also without subtlety. But with the kind of figure Gobbi presented, belly laughs were eminently in order. (Frank Guarerra was the Ford rather than Thomas Stewart.)



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