Falstaff – Edinburgh International Festival

Louise Winter and Roland Wood in Falstaff at the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh. Picture: Julie Howden

Falstaff, presented by Scottish Opera, continues at the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh as part of the Edinburgh International Festival until 14 August 2021.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

It is said that Verdi wrote this, his final opera, as he felt he ‘deserved the right to laugh’. The audience in the Festival Theatre certainly picked up on the humour served up by this joyously fast-paced production.

Roland Wood leads the company with his delightfully debauched and deluded Falstaff. Wood is the full package: delicious vocals, spot-on comedic timing and the ability to wrap an audience around his little finger just the way Falstaff imagines himself to have his ‘way with the ladies’.

With a few steps, a glance to the audience and a cocked ankle, Falstaff has the audience ‘on side’ from the get-go. Aided and abetted in equal measure by Bardolph (Jamie MacDougall) and Pistol (Alastair Miles) whose double-act evokes memories of the crew of The Vital Spark, the comedy is pitched perfectly in all its lewdness.

Verdi’s work is, of course, based on Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. Leading the wives is Elizabeth Llewellyn as Alice Ford. Resplendent in a selection of jewel-coloured gowns, our Alice is controlling, coquettish and charming in turns, bringing warmth to her character in her rich and restrained vocal performance. She has great presence and a generosity with her fellow performers, most notably her daughter, Nanetta (Gemma Summerfield). Here is a soprano with a seemingly effortless range with the phrasing that belies the effortlessness – truly mesmerising.

Falstaff’s entreaty to meet Alice for a lover’s tryst is wholly duplicated to Sioned Gwen Davies’ Meg Page, leading to the convoluted plot amongst the women, with the devious Mistress Quickly (Louise Winter) setting up meetings between Alice and Falstaff.

In counterpoint to the face of the main plot, Nanetta and her lover Fenton (Elgan Llŷr Thomas) meet secretly in longing with lush, romantic melodies in contrast to the quicker, almost breathless tempo in the more farcical scenes.

Falstaff, of course, meets his comeuppance, falling hook, line and sinker for the plot laid by the wives and is truly ‘rinsed’. His vanity and self-delusion soon repair his bruised ego and once again he finds himself drawn into another convoluted circumstance involving a mystical tryst in the forest at midnight. This scene is utterly glorious to watch – the lighting, the costumes and the movement of the ensemble transforms the whole production into a bewitching fairytale. Nanetta’s solo in her guise as Queen of the Fairies is exquisite.

The set is filled with a range of stairways up to a bridge across the full stage: this is both useful and a bind at times. It’s always a delight to be able to use different levels on a stage and David McVicar as both designer and director uses these levels throughout, often to great effect. The final scene in the forest under the giant oak is rather hampered as the tree seems ‘stuck’ upstage. A bit more thought to bring the tree to the fore could have made the fairies scene even more wonderful than it already is.

As is the way in fairy tales, all comes right in the end leading to a joyous finale and curtain call after curtain call as the audience thrill to the joy of not only this show, but just being in a theatre again to share the essential live experience we have all missed for far, far too long. Welcome back, one and all.

Fiona Orr