Opera “Falstaff” directed by Christophe Marthaler in Salzburg. Review

The Salzburg Festival, having chosen as its motto this year Hamlet’s observation “The time is out of joint”, could not help but take on Shakespeare’s operatic plots. True, the matter did not come to Verdi’s Otello, but they showed another late Verdi opera, and, moreover, a comic one – Falstaff (1893). It was directed by Christoph Marthaler and conductor Ingo Metzmacher. The extremely unexpected result of the cooperation of two veterans of the advanced musical theater was watched by Sergey Hodnev.

In 1965, Orson Welles directed his Falstaff, where he himself played the main role. It is this circumstance that makes Christophe Marthaler’s performance dance: Anna Fibrok, the constant co-author of the director, built a film set of the 1960s on the giant stage of the Grand Festival Hall. The stage scenery depicts pavilion scenery – and a cinema hall, still crouched to the left, where, already before the start of the action, the conditional “Orson W.” is looking through the footage. (French actor Marc Bodnar).

Director Orson W. has an alter ego in the form of Falstaff, for the time being the central character on this set, but they are not identical – even though they are dressed as twins. The fat director sips whiskey, while Falstaff prefers some pills and indignantly refuses to wear a false belly – “thickness” in the frame. At first, cameramen, assistants, extras, acting out their doubles in the proper way, actors conscientiously flicker on the stage, but then the nervous Orson W. loses control over what is happening more and more noticeably, and the border between cinematic reality and real reality dissolves. So the actresses who are dissatisfied with the director (the “Windsor wives” of the literary source) get the opportunity, with the support of stupid technical employees, to mock him and Falstaff to their heart’s content – obviously, without any regard for the script.

What can be seriously reproached for this whole undertaking is the extremely unfortunate acoustic properties of the scenery. And the flighty lyrical voice of Bogdan Volkov (Fenton), and the large soprano of Elena Stikhina (Alice Ford), and, alas, the already cracked baritone of Simon Keenleyside (Ford) – all sounded rather unprofitable in this environment. But even here there were not without exceptions: the young Giulia Semenzato (Nannetta) nevertheless showed the possibilities of her light, light voice quite effectively, and Gerald Finlay, the famous Canadian bass-baritone of the Mozart-Belkanth profile, sang his Falstaff with a voluminous, elegant and, most importantly, , not in a comedic noble sound.

Obviously, in a strange and not at all frontal comedy, there is complexity here. Both the public and the critics of Falstaff were booed.

The 71-year-old director, who resented the Salzburg audience a long time ago, is, of course, no stranger under Gerard Mortier. But it is interesting that in this case his mockery is actually much less bilious in the sense of social satire than in past times. Secondary characters can flop into the pool with exaggerated repetition, they can get tangled in kilometers of film or in short cables, but the overall tone is soft, human, some, if you like, Woodiallen.

With Shakespeare’s Sir John Falstaff in front of your eyes, you don’t really expect this. But Verdi’s last opera, too, is not exactly a reckless buffoonery like Rossini’s comic operas, and that’s exactly what the conductor’s work of Ingo Metzmacher at the head of the Vienna Philharmonic reminded of, focused, a little gloomy, devoid of “Italian” gloss. But it emphasizes with what awareness the old Verdi entered the “young” territory of experimentation and formal freedom. Falstaff Marthaler is not fat and not ridiculous, but in the end, Shakespeare himself has no doubts about his good nature and his well-known restlessness. Restless, absurd, absurd and sympathetic outgoing kind of his director and shows. Why does his grumbling about the fact that the golden days of chivalry have passed, that honor has turned into an empty phrase, that scoundrels are taking over everywhere, takes on a slightly Chekhovian tone – and yet quite modern: with the broken connection of times, this happens.