James Conlon
REVIEW: Conlon Chooses Falstaff for LA Farewell
By Richard S. Ginell
Approaching the last months of his 20-year tenure as Los Angeles Opera’s music director, James Conlon dearly wanted to conduct Verdi’s Falstaff one more time. The first professional gig he ever had as a conductor was Falstaff, and it happens to be his personal favorite of Verdi’s operas. No wonder, for Falstaff is the most gratifying of all of Verdi’s operas for a conductor since the orchestra plays such a prominent role as instigator, commentator, kibitzer, and illuminator.
Also Falstaff is one reason why LA Opera exists at all. It was a memorable Los Angeles Philharmonic/Royal Opera of London/Teatro Communale Florence co-production in 1982, led by the revered Carlo Maria Giulini, that started the ball rolling for local factotums to get their act together and launch Music Center Opera in 1986. That company, since renamed LA Opera, was celebrating its 40th anniversary, so why not add that as an incentive to revive Falstaff?
So Verdi’s final masterpiece opened Saturday night Apr. 18, at the very same Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in which the Giulini performances took place. It wasn’t the original production – whose sets looked rather long in the tooth when mounted for the last time in 2005 – but rather a still-fresh, essentially traditional Lee Blakeley edition that debuted here in 2013. A good time was promised, and a good time was delivered.
And how could it miss? While Conlon excels in many fields, his strongest suit of all may well be in Verdi, where he runs a disciplined ship that allows for plenty of sweeping lyrical arches and abundant energy for the composer’s eruptions of passion and violence. To Falstaff, he adds the essential ingredient of humor.
Verdi’s score is a wonderland of details for each section of the orchestra, and Conlon seemed to savor it bar by bar. In Act I, for example, Conlon held out the pauses in Falstaff’s “honor” monologue for exactly the right comic effect, caressing each of the tiny, gorgeous melodies that Verdi pulls out of the air before flinging them aside. At other times such as in the equally brief “prelude” (if that’s what you want to call it), he proceeded somewhat deliberately – which brought up memories of Giulini’s elegant rehearsals and performances indelibly imprinted in my mind. There was extraordinary rapport between Conlon, his singers, and even stage director Shawna Lucey throughout the performance, reacting on point to each Verdi orchestral flight of fancy and each inspired Arrigo Boito adaptation of Shakespeare’s words.