‘Falstaff’ Review: Mirth, Magic, and Miscommunications Galore

After plenty of pranks and ploys, “Falstaff” declared that “he who laughs last laughs best” — and it was perhaps the audience that laughed best as they left the Agassiz Theatre, delighted by the Harvard College Opera’s production of Verdi’s 19th-century comedy. Directed by Eliza R. Zangerl ’26, the show about the fat knight Falstaff (Carl B. Ho ’24) ran from Feb. 2 through Feb. 10, embellishing its impressive musical displays and excellent production quality with touches of modern aesthetics and humor.

Verdi’s “Falstaff,” based on Shakespeare’s play “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” opens on Sir John Falstaff’s plan to seduce the wealthy Alice Ford (Tara E. Guetzloe ’26) and Meg Page (Lara R. Tan ’27) in a get-rich-quick scheme. The faithful wives conspire to lure Falstaff into Alice’s home, where they frighten him into thinking Alice’s jealous husband Ford (Andrew Lu ’24) is after him. When Falstaff’s well-intentioned servants alert Ford to the knight’s plan, their schemes collide and hilarity ensues.

The cast’s comedic acting and expressive singing maintained the show’s lively humor. Their efforts were accompanied by a skillful orchestra — the nimble strings, in particular, buoyantly supported the vocals. Ho also had great stage presence with his slow, pompous movements, welcoming the audience in on the joke as the hilarious Quickly (Caitlin E. Paul ’24) and swaggering Ford indulged Falstaff’s vanity.

The cast took advantage of musical pauses to act out side glances, appraisals, and realizations, and the subtle acting thoroughly entertained. However, the performances were funniest when they were overemphasized with twittering laughter, jumping around the stage, and elaborate tiptoeing. As such, the show might have benefited from even more exaggerated blocking.

Zangerl made use of the theater’s obscured lines of vision when blocking scenes. As characters peeked through side curtains and from behind set pieces, they invited the lucky portion of the audience that could see them to join in on the eavesdropping. This positioning added a sense of realism to the show’s motif of spying, allowing the audience to feel even more involved in the show’s many scenes of gossip and plotting.

While the costumes designed by Maddy M. Gates ’26 evoked the age of nobles, peasants, and fairies, with rich colors befitting a comedy, the pure white set and props by Harvard Graduate School of Design students Fernando Garrido Carreras, Jonathan Caron, and Paris Bezanis strikingly deviated from the common conception of Shakespearean aesthetics. White, four-walled set pieces were rotated to assemble various backdrops as characters sat at white tables, drank from white bottles, and played white lutes. The set’s monochrome simplicity enabled it to fit in with the costumes even as its uniqueness reflected the surprising supernatural focus of Act III, in which the women organize a fake gathering of spirits. As the story shifts from an ordinary town to an eerie park at midnight, fey costumes with finger lights and glitter join the set as utterly modern elements of the production. Though surprising to the point of feeling somewhat out-of-place, they were largely justified by the story’s already unexpected turn into the fantastical, ultimately adding to the feeling of riotous fun.

In addition, Gabriel Brock ’26’s lighting design was most powerful when it tested the boundaries of realism. The secret liaisons between Nannetta (Ella M. Rescigno ’25) and Fenton (Andrew Courtney ’25) provided charming breaks from the scenes of scheming, their sweeping love duets washed in vivid pink light. An abstract white tree in Act III, set upon the backdrop pieces and flooded with green lighting, made for an ingeniously ghostly forest that complemented the schemers’ magical mischief. These otherworldly atmospheres sprung from the unrealistic yet enchanting lighting.

“Falstaff” is as funny and romantic as a comic opera would be expected to be, but it is also surprising in its last-act incorporation of fairies and witchcraft. This production explored the potential of that magical element by piloting a distinctively modern design, while remaining true to the comedic value of the story with fantastic performances. The Harvard College Opera proved, once again, that opera can retain its classic humor while experimenting with modernity.

—Staff writer Isabelle A. Lu can be reached at isabelle.lu@thecrimson.com.