FALSTAFF

Composer: GIUSEPPE VERDI Book by Arrico Boro, from Shakespeare First performance: La Scala, Milan, February 9, 1893 3 acts. Sir John FatstarFr, plotting affairs with both Mrs. Page and Mrs. Ford, wishes to make them pay out financially. The ladies themselves, however, are in on the plot, thanks to Dame Quickly, and are attempting a counterplot. Anne Page, who is in love with the threadbare Fenton, it is hoped by her parents will marry much better. Sir John accepts the invitations to a téte-d-téte sent him by Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page. Ford himself, dre ed as a man named Fontana, delivers the invitations. Sir John attired in his best wooing garments goes to the Fords’ house as Fontana (Ford) follows. There, to save Sir John from discovery, after a variety of horseplay, he is tumbled out the window into the Thames. Ford’s anger is eased by seeing Sir John’s humiliating situation. Wine revives Sir John, however, and he is ready to fall into another trap when Mrs. Ford again invites him to a rendezvous in Windsor Forest. He is to come disguised as a hunter. He arrives and this time elaborate preparations have been made to receive him. Mrs. Ford goes as the Queen of Fairies, Mrs. Page as a nymph, Dame Quickly as a witch, and scores of children as sprites and elves. Sir John, in the moonlit forest scene, is chased and hounded by all until he admits that he has been bested. All unmask fora last chorus together, not before, however, Anne has taken part in a mock marriage ceremony with Fenton, which, it develops, was no mockery but real.