SLAVEIKOV Square / 19.02.2025
Author: Vyara Stoyanova
Zeffirelli’s DNA in “Falstaff” at the Sofia Opera
Verdi’s piece returns to the Sofia Opera’s repertoire forty years later, with voices “as grand as Jupiter”.
“Falstaff” was last part of the Sofia Opera repertoire back in 1986 and now returns to the Sofia cultural life. Verdi’s comedic opera will be performed on the 27th and 28th of February and on the 1st and 2nd of March.
This will be the third time in the Sofia Opera’s history of setting this piece. The first premiere was in 1942, with an Italian conductor. Forty-four years pass before Svetozar Donev reinterpreted the piece in 1986, with Stoyan Popov and Pavel Gerdzhikov in the main role. Now, thirty-nine years later, Marco Gandini takes on this task: he has worked as Franco Zeffirelli’s assistant during the time the legendary director set “Falstaff” on the “Metropolitan” stage.
Zeffirelli’s DNA is deeply engraved in Gandini’s production at the Sofia Opera because “He is my maestro”, as the director excitedly shared during a press conference. This is his return to the Sofia Opera and Ballet after having set “Medea”.
This production of “Falstaff” is different from every other interpretation the Italian has worked on before, as all participants shared: from the opera singers and director to the scenographer who creates grand, almost Hollywood level decors for the performance. Italo Grassi shared for the press that he plans to work with water on stage and use elements which reference Shakespeare’s time (Arigo Boito’s libretto for “Falstaff” is inspired by the comedy “The Merry Wives of Windsor” by Shakespeare). Grassi couldn’t share further details on using water “live” on stage because intense work on the decors is underway before rehearsals on stage begin.
Director Marco Gandini (left) and Rino Matafu who will arrive from Italy to perform the role of Fenton. Photo: The Sofia Opera
“Falstaff” is a big challenge for the singers as well, Gandini noted; he shared his impression of the famous voices who are a part of the ensemble, with the “voice problem going on all around the world at the moment”. Kiril Manolov and the Italian singer Lucco Gallo will take on the main roll of the fat and lustful swindler: both of them have bountiful experience in the role from international productions on stages all over the world.
“Here we have voices as grand as Jupiter”, Gandini stated.
Mariana Pencheva is also a part of this grand voices group; she will perform the role of Missis Quickly. This will be the 14th production of “Falstaff” she will take part in but she shares that she hasn’t performed in such an interpretation of the opera before because “Gandini knows the score even better than the conductor does”.
Also starring in “Falstaff”: Atanas Mladenov and Ventseslav Anastasov as Ford; Gabriela Georgieva and Milla Mihova as Alice Ford; Emil Pavlov and Rino Matafu as Fenton, with the roles still not set for every performance. Conductor will conduct the performances. Anna Biagiotti is working on the costumes, with some of them shipped all the way from Rome.