Otto Nicolai's The Merry Wives of Windsor
David Hermann (stage director), Christian Zacharias (conductor) – Avec Anneke Luyten (Frau Fluth), Sabina Willeit (Frau Reich), Franz Hawlata (Sir John Falstaff)...
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Cast
David Hermann — Stage director
Rifail Ajdarpasic — Set designer
Ariane Isabell Unfried — Costume designer
Fabrice Kebour — Lighting
Anneke Luyten — Frau Fluth
Sabina Willeit — Frau Reich
Franz Hawlata — Sir John Falstaff
Werner Van Mechelen — Herr Fluth
Laurent Kubla — Herr Reich
Sophie Junker — Jungfer Anna
Davide Giusti — Fenton
Stefan Cifolelli — Junker Spärlich
Patrick Delcour — Dr Cajus
Sébastien Dutrieux — Le thérapeute
Orchestra of the Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège
Chorus of the Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège
Program notes
At the Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège, stage director David Hermann and music director Christian Zacharias lead a production of Otto Nicolai's 1849 opera The Merry Wives of Windsor, a work that draws its inspiration from William Shakespeare's beloved eponymous play.
Depicting the comedic adventures of an unhappy rascal on a quest for affection and money, Shakespeare’s original pearl of a play caricatures the bourgeois mores of his age. All the essential ingredients for a top-notch comic opera can be found in this hilarious romp of a comedy of errors, qualities Verdi put on full display in Falstaff, his own 1893 adaptation of the tale. But before Verdi’s work came Otto Nicolai’s Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, a three-act Singspiel mixing spoken dialogue and musical numbers. By the time he composed the work, Nicolai had already achieved considerable success with Italian operas, but it was this new work in his native German that would become his masterpiece.
