The last time director Chuck Hudson helmed an Arizona Opera production, it turned into a profitable venture for the company.
For the 2013-14 season finale, Hudson created a new concept for the companyโs production of โDon Pasquale,โ setting it in 1950s Hollywood.
Fast-forward to the 2015-16 season finale this weekend, and Hudson is at it again, this time re-creating the classic Old Globe Theatre used in Shakespeareโs day as a setting for Verdiโs โFalstaff.โ
โWe are genuinely trying to revive that Shakespearan feel by putting it on a globe stage,โ Hudson said days before โFalstaffโ opened for its Phoenix run last weekend. The production moves to Tucson Music Hall for two performances this weekend.
Hudson and the same design team that created โDon Pasqualeโ spent a year creating the globe theater for โFalstaff.โ Audience members who buy upgraded tickets can sit on the stage, and several will be invited to be in the production, creating something of a play within a play, said bass-baritone Craig Colclough, who is singing the title role.
Falstaff has become the 34-year-old, California-based singerโs signature role, portraying a character Verdi based on Shakespeareโs farce โThe Merry Wives of Windsor.โ
Like Shakespeareโs fat knight, Sir John Falstaff, Verdiโs Falstaff courts vulnerable wealthy women, simultaneously to trick them out of their money.
Colclough, who was in Hudsonโs โDon Pasqualeโ two years ago, has done the heavy, almost depressing version of Falstaff, where the characterโs obsessions and indulgences lead to his downward spiral.
He prefers Hudsonโs production that โsticks very closely to Verdiโs score and the libretto, which at its heart is hilarious. Thatโs my preference.โ
โHe acts the fool, and yet there is something so enjoyable about him,โ Colclough said. โHeโs such a dreamer, and even at the end when they have humiliated him and they find him a lecherous jerk, they are still enamored by him.
โI want to share him for the rest of my life. Itโs absolutely marvelous writing, the structure of him. It is such a good fit. It feels like home doing this role.โ
This is the first time Arizona Opera has mounted Verdiโs โFalstaffโ and the first time Hudson has directed the piece.
โI think itโs super challenging music for singers,โ he said. โFrom a musical standpoint, itโs one of the richest things I think heโs ever created. The ensembles themselves are just incredible. There are no really standard, โThis is an aria, this is a duetโ feel to it, which makes it feel like a standard Shakespearean production. I think it is one of the most perfect examples of the character of Falstaff.โ