~ Features a great cast: Ambrogio Maestri is one of the finest Falstaff's of our time. The Italian baritone brings a powerful, versatile voice to his role, but also brings his character a hilarious buffo quality. Daniele Gatti, one of the most acclaimed opera conductors working today, leads a stunning cast of singers including Barbara Fritolli as Alice Ford.

~ Genuinely warm italianita in all of the music-making, combined with a boisterous production by stage director Sven-Eric Bechtolf, turns Verdi's commedia lirica into a fireworks display of high spirits as well as what the Neue Zrcher Zeitung called ''musically and dramaturgically a feast of life and of love of life.''