James Levine, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Paul Plishka, Mirella Freni, Marilyn Horne - Verdi: Falstaff (2009/1992)
NTSC 4:3 (720x480) | Italiano (LinearPCM, 2 ch) | (DTS, 5 ch) | 7.46 Gb (DVD9) | 126 min
Classical | Deutsche Grammophon | Sub: Italiano, English, Deutsch, Francais, Espanol, Chinese
NTSC 4:3 (720x480) | Italiano (LinearPCM, 2 ch) | (DTS, 5 ch) | 7.46 Gb (DVD9) | 126 min
Classical | Deutsche Grammophon | Sub: Italiano, English, Deutsch, Francais, Espanol, Chinese
This time-honoured production of Verdi's final opera, one that has seen all the greatest Falstaffs of the last four decades hold court at its convincingly shabby Garter Inn and upset the decent folk of its lovingly recreated Tudor Windsor, marked the first appearance at the Met of producer and designer Franco Zeffirelli in March 1964. The Anglophile Zeffirelli had by then made his Shakespearean reputation with a revelatory Romeo and Juliet in London - his films of this play and of The Taming of the Shrew were shortly to follow - as well as with a similar production of Falstaff at Covent Garden, and the attention to visual and psychological detail displayed in his Met Falstaff won it high praise: “a milestone in the history of operatic production in this city" was the judgement of the New York Herald Tribune.
