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LA Opera’s 40th anniversary season continues with a revival of Giuseppe Verdi’s final masterpiece Falstaff for six performances April 18 through May 10.

Based on Shakespeare’s comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff is Verdi’s final opera and the crowning achievement of his career, premiering in 1893 when the composer was 79 years old.  It came five decades after his only other comic opera Un Giorno Di Regno.

According to legend, the opera was prompted by a remark Verdi heard that he was incapable of writing a comic opera, and he unveiled Falstaff after two years of working in secret. 

The story involves  the amorous mishaps of Shakespeare’s aging knight, a grandiose, rotund, impoverished rogue of an anti-hero Sir John Falstaff who comes up with a plot to simultaneously improve his love life and his finances by seducing two merry, and more importantly wealthy wives of Windsor so he can live out his days in luxury. That could have worked out well, except that  the bumbling knight sends both his targets the same love letter. 

The women – Alice Ford and Meg Page discover Falstaff’s audacity and are now determined to humiliate their would-be suitor and teach him a lesson.  Together with their allies, they set up elaborate deceptions and pranks involving a whirlwind of disguises and deceptions,  jealous husbands, mistaken identities, and farcical situations, including an unexpected dip in the River Thames. The result is riotous chaos, and an unabashed celebration of human folly in Merry Olde England’s lusty days and bawdy nights that include horseplay, chase scenes, and a climactic plunge into the river Thames. 

Now humbled in comedic fashion, the now soggy Falstaff is in a foul mood. He rants and raves, the world is bleak and conspiring against him, a brave and noble knight, but eventually comes to terms with his fate `Let’s pour a bit of wine into this Thames water.’ Beatings, insults, more confusion and embarrassment follow, but a good natured acceptance of defeat bring a happy outcome and the show closes with a festive ensemble music celebrating human folly, forgiveness, and humor.

The music plays off the raucous bravado of the men with the lighter, more intricate exchanges between the women, and both against the romance and ardor of the young lovers Nanetta and Fenton.

Needless to say, Falstaff stunned the opera world with its comedic brilliance and laid to rest any doubts about Verdi’s ability to do comedy.

The current production of Falstaff is a revival of the company’s 2013 original LA Opera production created by the late Lee Blakeley.  It will be conducted by James Conlon who is currently in his 20th and final season with the company as Music Director before taking on a new role of Conductor Laureate. The lavish  scenery and costumes sets and costumes of merry old England  were designed by Adrian Linford.  

The title role will be performed by Craig Colclough, a bass-baritone who began his career with the company, rising from supporting parts to leading roles including, most recently, Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro, Leporello in Don Giovanni, and Capulet in Roméo et Juliette.

The cast includes several additional returning company favorites, including soprano Nicole Heaston as Alice Ford and mezzo-soprano Hyona Kim as Mistress Quickly, along with two alumni of our Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program, tenor Anthony León as Fenton and mezzo-soprano Sarah Saturnino as Meg Page. The music plays off the raucous bravado of the men with the lighter, more intricate exchanges between the women, and both against the romance and ardor of the young lovers Nanetta and Fenton. 

The opera is sung in Italian with English subtitles and has a run time of approximately two hours and 40 minutes, which includes one intermission.

Music Director James Conlon will present his popular  free pre-show introduction  to the  history and plot of the opera, and key musical moments highlighting one hour before showtime.

For more information and tickets, please visit LAOpera.org/Falstaff.

LA Opera will present the company premiere of Ainadamar April 26 through May 18. 

The show recounts the fateful final days of poet and playwright Federico García Lorca who was executed during the Spanish Civil War at a natural spring in the hills above the Spanish city of Granada known as Aynadamar, Arabic for fountain of tears. 

Recounting the poet’s life is Margarita Xirgu, a veteran Spanish actress and Lorca’s muse who spent her career portraying Mariana Pineda in Lorca’s play.  Pineda was a 19th-century political martyr executed by the absolutist Spanish regime for sewing a revolutionary flag with the embroidered slogan “Equality, Freedom and Law.  Lorca  could see her statue from the window of his family home in Granada and grew to idolize her.  Evoking the vibrant colors and poetry of Andalusia and especially Lorca’s hometown Granada, the play was Lorca’s first theatrical success. He asked Xirgu to play the title role at its premiere in June 1927 at the Teatre Goya in Barcelona with scenic design and costumes by Salvador Dalí.

Xirgu fled Spain at the beginning of the Civil War but was unable to persuade Lorca to leave as well. His liberal beliefs and open homosexuality subsequently led to his death at the hands of the Falange, the fascist party founded by the son of former Spanish dictator General Primo de Rivera. Xirgu continued to play Mariana Pineda, keeping Lorca’s work alive.  The opera is based on Xirgu’s memories in a series of flashbacks as she prepares  to go on stage as Mariana Pineda.  

The opera opens with a group of young actresses singing the opening ballad and Xirgu remembers Lorca’s brilliance as she tells her young student Nuria of meeting Lorca for the first time in a Madrid bar where he first described his play to her. The flashback is interrupted by a broadcast over the state radio by the Falangist Ramón Ruiz Alonso that his party will stamp out the beginnings of the revolution.  With the launch of the Spanish Civil War, Xirgu pleads with Lorca to join her and her theatre company in Cuba, but he is adamant about staying on in Granada. Xirgu blames herself for not being able to persuade the idealistic Lorca to abandon Spain and save himself.  As she sings of her dreams of finding freedom in Cuba, Lorca insists that he must witness and write about his country’s suffering.

As Xirgu is dying, she performs Pineda’s story for the last time, telling Nuria that though the actor acts only for a moment, but the larger idea of freedom transcends that. A vision of Lorca interrupts her, thanking her for immortalizing his spirit on stage, in the hearts of her students, and the world. 

Led by Resident Conductor Lina González-Granados, the production features a dramatic, flamenco-inspired score by Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov and a poignant libretto by David Henry Hwang. Staged by director Deborah Colker, the production has  won acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera, Scottish Opera, Welsh National Opera and Detroit Opera.

Ana María Martínez (currently appearing as Despina in LAO’s Così fan tutte) returns to take center stage as Lorca’s muse, Margarita Xirgu. 

Since its 2003 world premiere, Ainadamar has become one of the most frequently performed operas of the 21st century, seen throughout Europe, North America and South America. Although it is an LA Opera company premiere, the opera has even been performed extensively locally in LA by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2004, Long Beach Opera in 2012 and USC Thornton Opera in 2016, and so should be familiar to local audience.

Ainadamar is sung in Spanish with both English and Spanish supertitles. 

Special Events planned around the opera include  a Celebración de las Artes hosted by LA Opera Connects and Hispanics for LA Opera after the May 4 matinee, with  music, food and fun for all on the Music Center’s Jerry Moss Plaza.

The May 7 performance will mark Pride Night, with a special post-performance gathering for attendees. 

For more information and tickets, please visit LAOpera.org/Ainadamar.