Title: THIS is Falstaff
Product review: I have read the other review of this work and I take great exception. This is the recording by which others should be judged. Solti captures the raucousness of Falstaff, using and emphasizing the horns like great comedic guffaws. Geraint Evans oozes unctiousness and Freni sweetly takes on the only aria in the whole opera. When you digest this version of Falstaff everything else is so lady-like and almost effeminate. Falstaff is a drunk, he smells and he is dishonest. Strings cannot bring home this earthy opera the way Solti and the horns do and Solti keeps the opera moving in a wild, continuous manner--like a ball well dented rolling downhill and he finesses the fugue at the end. This opera, in my opinion Verdi's masterpiece, is in continous motion the way Gianni Schicci is. It is not a stop, stand and sing opera like Don Carlos and others make that mistake--not Solti.
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