Verdi’s final work is commonly perceived as a joyful comedy about a fat boozer who cynically seduces two women and gets severely punished for it. Only once you read into the Shakespearian original and carefully analyse the extraordinary richness of the opera’s musical motifs, you get to the bottom of the mysterious work, consciously written by the aged composer as a farewell to his momentous oeuvre, impressive life, and the mortal world, which he ironically summed up as the Creator’s painful joke played on humans and their endeavours.
An unexpected rejection leading to loneliness, misery, and lack of perspectives is an experience we can all sympathise with. The production zooms in on the exact moment when Falstaff is driven to the brink of despair.
Pushed away by a man he loved, Falstaff decides to drink his life away. As part of this banal plan, he moves into a brothel inhabited by fallen people like himself. He is angry and bitter. His humour is caustic and confrontational.
The production does not portray him as a good-natured raconteur because of the extraordinary motifs recurring in the orchestral part. Falstaff’s plan falters when he witnesses genuine love budding between two young people. He suddenly realises that it is impossible to find solace in the arms of a prostitute at the hour of death – only a loving, faithful woman can be the source of comfort to a dying man.
The idea to seduce a woman he pines for tragically backfires not merely because she is married but because of Falstaff’s cunning decision to have a backup candidate. When the two women compare notes, the crafty heartbreaker is headed for a disaster and ultimate death at the brink of drunken delirium. In his final moments, he concludes that human life is a sad joke on all of us.
