Name: Falstaff
Start: 2027-03-14T14:00:00
Location: Straz Center for the Performing Arts

Opera Tampa

A staple of the repertoire for more than 200 years, Rossini’s best-loved opera has survived the cudgels of pop culture − from Bugs Bunny cartoons to television commercials − without the slightest bruise. This quintessential comic opera holds its own on the global stage, admired for its scintillating overture, fast-paced plot and the endearing foibles of its high-energy characters, all of which come to life in Opera Tampa’s new production. Follow the hilarious adventures of the resourceful barber Figaro, who orchestrates plans between Count Almaviva and Rosina, the beautiful ward of the cranky Dr. Bartolo.

The Barber of Seville

Straz Center for the Performing Arts

The last of Verdi’s 26 operas, Falstaff is the product of a composer in the twilight of his career – age 80, no less – but able to craft a Shakespearean masterpiece to top his resume. This comic farce follows the escapades of an overweight knight trying to seduce two women to gain access to their husbands’ fortunes. Verdi ends the opera, and his musical life, not looking forward but back, with a fugue worthy of Bach. Opera Tampa’s new production embraces the wit and fast pace of a work innovative in its time, where the orchestra abandons the stop-and-go pattern of traditional Italian opera for a continuous musical commentary.

Falstaff

Puccini’s Caligula-esque bit of theater includes the ingredients that define opera: love, honor, virtue, apostacy, torture, suicide and murder. What’s not to like? Based on Victorien Sardou’s play, the nasty plot grinds its characters into the earth with cynical flair as they sing with a primal but eloquent intensity − topped by that great aria of despair, “Vissi d’arte.” Opera Tampa’s production embraces Puccini’s dramatic realism and tense score with flesh-and-blood people − Floria Tosca, Mario Cavaradossi and Baron Scarpia – whose lives entwine with melodramatic passion in the course of a single day.