You need to know the whole opera – every part.” “As a singer, you of course have to know your part. “It took me a long time to understand Falstaff,” Feola said. 'Well Falstaff is a true ensemble piece,” Barcellona said. “When I brought my parents to see me in Falstaff in Vienna for the first time, they didn’t like it,” Pirgu said. “If people come to hear Falstaff because they want to hear gorgeous arias, they won’t like it,” Barcellona said. Verdi composed the opera without traditional divisions between recitative, aria, and ensembles, creating a “through composed” score that is continuous from start to finish. “ Falstaff is very different from the operas Verdi wrote before it,” Barcellona said.īut how? For starters, there’s no overture. Here is what mezzo-soprano Daniela Barcellona, soprano Eleonora Buratto, soprano Rosa Feola, tenor Saimir Pirgu, and baritone Luca Salsi had to say about Verdi’s last opera. On a break from rehearsing Falstaff with maestro Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, five singers responded. Is Verdi’s last opera, Falstaff, his best? Beethoven’s final symphony changed the way composers approached the genre altogether. Bach created his contrapuntal masterpiece, The Art of Fugue, at the end of his life. Sometimes, composers save their best work for last. Falstaff, Eduard von Grützner (Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Falstaff opera music