It’s not all that often I feel genuinely moved by an opera on video. It’s so much less immersive than experiencing live. There is the occasional one. Both the Berlin Parsifal and the Aix-en-Provence La traviata come to mind. The recently released La traviata from the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino is another one. It’s an interesting and effective production with a strong cast centred on the searing Violetta of Nadine Sierra.
Verdi’s Falstaff, of course, is a farce so there’s no reason why a director shouldn’t treat it as one but all three of the other productions I’ve seen in the last few years have transposed it to the 1950s and put a spin on it. Sven-Eric Bechtolf, in his production for the 2021 Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, just doesn’t do that. It’s a 1590s (ish) setting and it’s played very broad. There are big costumes, big gestures, entrances and exits and characters “hidden in plain view”. It could be Dario Fo or Brian Rix.
operaramblings 