1/ The updating - from time of Henry IV to early years of Elizabeth II - works surprisingly well. Setting the 2nd scene in a restaurant, with different conversations at different tables, is genius, and @Lisette_Oropesa's Nanetta (foot up for kissy-face w. Fenton!) is adorable.
https://twitter.com/MetOpera/status/1343331560217427968
@Lisette_Oropesa 2/ Big fans of Verdi's grand style - not only in AIDA and DON CARLO but also his other Shakespearean collaboration with Boito, OTELLO - find the "chamber" style of this, his last work, to take some getting used to. This can be done, and it's worthwhile. FALSTAFF ends with
3/ a fugue ("Tutto il mondo e burla). I saw it in the house with Dad - he knew it well already, of course - and at the end he was like: "The old man ended with a fugue! He closed it out with a fugue😃"
4/ FALSTAFF is essentially the opera version of "The Merry Wives of Windsor," with the "honor" speech from 1H4 brought in as a monologue at the end of the 1st scene.
5/ Ambrogio Maestri, our Falstaff, is sort of "zwischenfach" between baritone and basso buffo, but that's ok, so's Verdi's Falstaff successfully interpreted by everyone from Paul Plishka (in an earlier Met vid) to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (in Bernstein's recording).
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