Falstaff         Jean-Philippe Lafont
Ford             Anthony Michaels-Moore
Fenton           Antonello Palombi
Dr Caius         Peter Bronder
Bardolph         Francis Egerton
Pistol           Gabriele Monici
Alice            Hillevi Martinpelto
Nannetta         Rebecca Evans
Mistress Quickly Sara Mingardo
Meg              Eirian James

Conductor        John Eliot Gardiner
Director         Ian Judge

Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique
Monteverdi Choir

Semi-staged productions are often semi-disastrous, but this one generated
terrific performances all round, letting the singers have a lot of fun. I
assume that Gardiner tours with semi-staged productions before he does a
recording with the aim of getting dramatic coherence without the expense of
a full staging. This is the first one I've seen that really works. It
should be a stonking recording.

The staging involved the usual (these days) silly running around the
orchestra, but it had the advantage of keeping the orchestra in the normal
place. The performers used the entrance on the platform quite a bit, which
meant they entered through the usual passage in the orchestra. There was a
full-width stage space at the front of the platform, and the left-hand side
of the back of the platform (where the percussion normally hang out) was
also used. The amount of space available allowed the different groups in
the ensembles to be well separated, and it also meant that there wasn't
milling around in front of the screen for ages before someone noticed
Fenton and Nannetta behind it. Henry Wood stood in for Herne the Hunter's
oak. The costumes looked improvised, concert dress with a lot of additions.
The women's dresses were black and white patterned (lots of near clashes,
very Italian), or grey, with red trimmings, and might have come from an
upmarket nearly-new shop rather than the usual Oxfam shop.

This is the first live Falstaff I've heard that seemed thoroughly Italian,
not only because it was sung in Italian. The singers and orchestra
emphasised the traditional operatic elements -- Fenton and Nannetta's
lyrical melody and the various bouncy tunes -- for the sound of them as
well as for their dramatic importance. The music drama aspects never got
lost, though -- the dialogue scenes worked perfectly as dialogue as well as
as musical form.

The characterisations were thoroughly traditional as well, but
energetically and amusingly done. Jean-Philippe Lafont was mildly sleazy
and very funny as Falstaff, scrounging a sub from Gardiner when his bar
bill arrived. He sounded exactly right to me, loud enough but not
ponderous. He looked and acted a bit like Pavarotti, maybe deliberately. I
was waiting for the hankie. Francis Egerton and Gabriele Monici as Bardolph
and Pistol didn't quite belong in the same production. Egerton doesn't
sound Italian, and his voice didn't always carry, but his theatrical skills
are impeccable. Monici was well buffo, and also quite funny. Antonello
Palombi as Fenton looked and sounded like an archetypical Italian
matinee-idol tenor. Hillevi Martinpelto was imposing, vocally and in her
presence, as Alice, and Rebecca Evans was a ladylike Nannetta. Sara
Mingardo has a fine, reasonably substantial mezzo, and sang Quickly
straight, but made her into a very funny Eve Arden type, with cat's eye
specs.

It all went down a treat with the audience. There was a certain amount of
schtick, which helped. At the beginning, some of the singers came on in
concert dress with scores, which were whisked away as Caius leapt out of a
laundry basket and Falstaff and pals came bustling in. At the end, everyone
put on funny red noses during the fugue. They encored the fugue and threw
the noses into the arena.

The orchestra, by the way was quite small but didn't seem to me to be out
of balance with the singers. (I wasn't in a ideal place to judge, however.)
The original instruments seemed to be mainly natural horns and retro models
of the other brass. The strings all looked modern. I couldn't say what
difference the instruments made. The playing was beautiful clear and
energetic, so they couldn't have done any harm.