Performances on April 17, April 19, and April 21, 2026
Tickets here
Synopsis
Act 1
At the Garter, an elite country club, Sir John Falstaff drinks and holds court with Bardolfo and Pistola following a night of debauchery. Dr. Caius storms in, accusing them of theft, but is quickly dismissed. Falstaff sets a new plan in motion: he sends identical flirtatious messages to two wealthy married women, Alice Ford and Meg Page, hoping to gain access to their money and status. When his companions refuse to help, claiming “honor,” Falstaff mocks them and sends the messages anyway.
Elsewhere on the club grounds, Alice and Meg discover they’ve received the exact same message. Rather than being flattered, they are amused and decide to teach Falstaff a lesson. With Mistress Quickly and Nannetta, they begin plotting Falstaff’s humiliation. Meanwhile, Bardolfo and Pistola warn Ford, who spirals into jealousy and begins planning his own revenge. As tensions rise, the men and women split into competing schemes, all aimed at Falstaff.
Act 2
Back inside the club, Bardolfo and Pistola return to Falstaff, pretending loyalty. Mistress Quickly delivers an invitation from Alice, encouraging Falstaff to visit her that afternoon. Soon after, Ford arrives in disguise, offering Falstaff money to seduce Alice so he can pursue her himself. Falstaff eagerly reveals he already has a meeting arranged, sending Ford into a deeper panic.
At the poolside, the women set their trap. Falstaff arrives, confident and flirtatious, but the situation quickly turns. A warning that Ford is returning sends Falstaff scrambling to hide. Falstaff is stuffed into a laundry hamper and dumped into the pool, soaked and publicly humiliated as the club looks on.
Act 3
Outside the club, Falstaff bemoans his misfortune. Shaken but undeterred, Falstaff agrees to meet Alice again, this time at midnight. The club prepares a larger spectacle, disguising themselves for a strange and theatrical prank. At the same time, Ford attempts to arrange a marriage for Nannetta, while the women secretly redirect her toward Fenton.
That night, Falstaff is surrounded, taunted, and overwhelmed by the group’s performance. The trick is finally revealed, and in the chaos, Nannetta and Fenton are successfully united. Falstaff, rather than resisting, joins the laughter. He recognizes the truth at the center of it all: everyone plays the fool. The opera ends with a shared realization that life itself is absurd, and best met with laughter.
Conductor’s Notes
Giuseppe Verdi’s Falstaff is one of the most exciting vocal and orchestral scores in the operatic repertoire, demonstrating the composer’s late-career mastery of color, pacing, and musical wit. Written when Verdi was nearly eighty, the opera reveals a composer who had fully absorbed the traditions of opera while also pushing them forward with remarkable freshness and vitality.
One exciting aspect of the score is its continuous musical flow. Unlike many earlier operas that separate recitative and aria, Falstaff unfolds in an almost uninterrupted stream of music. Verdi places exceptional emphasis on vocal ensembles, which drive both the comedy and the dramatic momentum. Verdi’s ensemble writing allows multiple characters to express different emotions simultaneously, creating rich layers of sound and meaning, particularly when each character sings a different text. The rapid exchanges and rhythmic precision reflect the bustling energy of the plot. Scenes evolve quickly, with orchestral transitions that seamlessly connect dialogue, ensemble passages, and moments of lyrical reflection. This fluid structure creates a sense of constant motion, making the opera feel dynamic and theatrically alive.
One of the most striking features of Falstaff is the orchestra’s constant activity. Rather than simply accompanying the singers, the orchestra acts as a dramatic narrator, commenting on the action and amplifying the humor of the story. Verdi fills the score with quick musical gestures, playful rhythms, and sparkling instrumental textures that mirror the mischievous tone of the opera. Short motifs bounce between strings, woodwinds, and brass, creating a lively musical conversation that keeps the audience engaged.
The orchestration is particularly colorful and precise. Woodwinds often provide witty commentary, fluttering around vocal lines to suggest laughter or irony, while the strings deliver rapid passages that energize the dramatic momentum. Verdi uses brass sparingly but effectively, punctuating key moments with bold statements that heighten the comic drama. The balance among instrumental groups is carefully crafted, allowing the orchestra to sound both transparent and vibrant. The orchestral score of Falstaff showcases Verdi’s extraordinary imagination and technical command. Its sparkling orchestration, rapid pacing, and dramatic sensitivity make it not only a comic masterpiece but also one of the most exhilarating orchestral achievements in opera.
Director’s Notes
Falstaff is full of unhinged men who act like boys, and women who know how to use that to their advantage. The opera lives in a world that confuses tradition with permission, and a modern country club felt like the right place to stage that contradiction. The Garter, our setting, is shaped by history and ritual, but also by indulgence and entitlement. It is polished on the surface, but underneath it is messy. It rewards performance, protects status, and allows behavior to go unchecked so long as everything looks right. In this space, growing up is sort of optional.
The character Falstaff moves through this world that is both extreme and recognizable. He is not just a man, he is a fantasy of masculinity. He carries the promise that a man does not have to take responsibility or develop emotional maturity so long as he can perform status. He is excessive, embarrassing, and undeniable. What lives quietly in others lives loudly in him.
That is what makes him dangerous. The world around him is not more disciplined, it is simply more contained. The same appetites are present. The same hunger for attention, power, and validation. Falstaff refuses to hide it.
The women understand how power actually works and how quickly it shifts. What they create is not simply a prank. It is a correction, a kind of social reckoning. For a moment, they expose the childish king of indulgence and rebalance the system that protects him.
What Falstaff reveals is simple and unsettling: We are all somewhat unhinged, somewhat messy, driven by appetites we claim to control. The difference is that Falstaff admits it. And in that admission, there is something liberating.
It is perhaps no accident that Falstaff was Verdi’s final opera and his only true comedy. Written at the end of his life after decades of tragedy, it carries a surprising lightness alongside a sharp awareness of human behavior. Drawing from Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor and the Henry IV plays, Verdi turns toward a laughter shaped by experience, contradiction, and a clear view of our appetites and illusions.
Cast (in order of vocal entrance)
Dr. Caius – Stefán Víkingur
Sir John Falstaff – Matan A. Gendelman
Bardolfo – Ryan Smith
Pistola – Garrett Reider
Meg Page – Isabelle Kosempa
Alice Ford – Sophia Grace Donelan
Dame Quickly – Nidia Guevara-Nolasco
Nannetta – Catherine Creed
Fenton – Colin Miller
Ford – Tzvi Bat Asherah
Club Staff - Gabriel Banda, Nicholas Gryniewski, Kyubin Moon, Krish Muthukumar & Lewei Wang
Ensemble (alphabetical order)
Gabriel Banda, Jack Burrows, Daniel Byun, Xi Chen, Natalie Creel, Carlee Elsner, Lindsay Feldman, Maria Fernandez, Hanna Frampton, Olivia Gonzales, Jayden Greicius, Nicholas Gryniewski, Jessica Lyublinsky, Dana Mays, Lauren Mimouni, Kyubin Moon, Kanade Motomura, Krish Muthukumar, Kathryn Peterson, Antoinette Pompe van Meerdervoort, Kate Ryan, Emma Vogelsang, Lewei Wang
Creative Team
Conductor – Miguel Harth-Bedoya
Stage Director – Matt Hune
Scenic Designer - Stefan Azizi
Assistant Scenic Designer - Nora Jones
Costume Designer - Macy Lyne
Lighting Designer - Madeleine Reid
Intimacy & Combat Director - Olivia Knight
Musical Preparation – Lyndsi Maus, Alex Munger, Nino Sanikidze, & Bethany Self
Chorus Director - Nino Sanikidze
Supertitles - Scott F. Heumann, adapted by Matt Hune
Production Staff
Stage Manager - Madison Elaine Sutton
Properties Supervisor & Scenic Charge Artist - Lauren Davis
Costume Supervisor - Barbara Dolney
Wig and Makeup Supervisor - Gisell Rubio
Deck Stage Manager - Madolyn Friedman-Logue
Assistant Stage Manager - Camille McCloskey
Surtitle Operator - Elizabeth Kirkconnell
Spotlight Operators - Qirong Liang*, Mary McNeely & Jordan Twadell*
Wig and Makeup Crew - Celeste Cerenio, Rebeca Gonzales Maldonado*, & Joel Lugo
Costume Crew - Miles Dolney, McKenna Marmolejo, Sophia Orrico* & Yining Xie*
Set Construction Crew - Rolando Colón, Jace Straka, Mary McNeely & Jozef Winemiller
Deck Crew - Clay Cooke, Alyssa Flores & Jozef Winemiller
* student crew members
The Shepherd School of Music thanks the following donors who supported this production of Falstaff:
Stage Director supported by the Adelaide Emily Lummis Fund for Opera Production
Scenic Designer supported by the Juliana Chyu and David Whitney Fund for Guest Artists in Opera Endowed Fund