Falstaff - Schedule, Program & Tickets
Falstaff
Commedia lirica in three acts
Libretto by Arrigo Boito after The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry IV by William Shakespeare
In Italian with German and English surtitles
Premiere
October 5, 2025
Sir John Falstaff can be quite exhausting, but he also brings plenty of life and laughter to the people.
"If Falstaff were thin, what would he be?" Sir John Falstaff loves food, wine, and women – and desperately needs money to pay off his debts. Despite his advanced age, he considers himself an irresistible womanizer and writes two identical love letters to Mrs. Alice Ford and Mrs. Meg Page in an attempt to obtain their husbands' money. But the two women see through his plan and turn the tables...
With his last opera, premiered in Milan in 1893, the almost 80-year-old Giuseppe Verdi turned to comedy for a second time and, in a sense, reinvented himself once again: In keeping with Arrigo Boito's cleverly played-with-words, references, and meter, Verdi created a richly detailed, through-composed score full of vibrant lightness and depth, interspersed with melancholic and lyrical moments, right up to the famous final fugue: "All is fun on earth!"
After the great success of Rossini's La Cenerentola in 2021, Damiano Michieletto is now staging Verdi's Commedia lirica as a fast-paced, opulently staged comedy about an aging musician who nostalgically reflects on his earlier successes and conquests while simultaneously bringing a sense of excitement to the narrow-minded, conservative society. For Daniele Gatti, who is conducting an opera production at the Semperoper for the first time as chief conductor of the Saxon State Orchestra, Falstaff is "a true miracle" and "a study of humanity."
Subject to change.
Libretto by Arrigo Boito after The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry IV by William Shakespeare
In Italian with German and English surtitles
Premiere
October 5, 2025
Sir John Falstaff can be quite exhausting, but he also brings plenty of life and laughter to the people.
"If Falstaff were thin, what would he be?" Sir John Falstaff loves food, wine, and women – and desperately needs money to pay off his debts. Despite his advanced age, he considers himself an irresistible womanizer and writes two identical love letters to Mrs. Alice Ford and Mrs. Meg Page in an attempt to obtain their husbands' money. But the two women see through his plan and turn the tables...
With his last opera, premiered in Milan in 1893, the almost 80-year-old Giuseppe Verdi turned to comedy for a second time and, in a sense, reinvented himself once again: In keeping with Arrigo Boito's cleverly played-with-words, references, and meter, Verdi created a richly detailed, through-composed score full of vibrant lightness and depth, interspersed with melancholic and lyrical moments, right up to the famous final fugue: "All is fun on earth!"
After the great success of Rossini's La Cenerentola in 2021, Damiano Michieletto is now staging Verdi's Commedia lirica as a fast-paced, opulently staged comedy about an aging musician who nostalgically reflects on his earlier successes and conquests while simultaneously bringing a sense of excitement to the narrow-minded, conservative society. For Daniele Gatti, who is conducting an opera production at the Semperoper for the first time as chief conductor of the Saxon State Orchestra, Falstaff is "a true miracle" and "a study of humanity."
Subject to change.