Sir John Falstaff would have been a country club guy. That’s the premise — and the genius — behind the Shepherd School of Music’s new production of Giuseppe Verdi’s final opera. “Falstaff” opens April 17, followed by a Sunday matinee April 19 and a first-of-its-kind third performance April 21 in Morrison Theater at Rice University’s Brockman Hall for Opera.
The production pairs one of the most demanding works in the operatic canon with a creative team intent on making it feel startlingly current. Director Matt Hune, artistic director and co-founder of Houston’s Rec Room Arts, has transplanted the action from Elizabethan England to the manicured lawns and wood-paneled lounges of a modern country club.
“I kept asking myself, ‘Where do people get to be this unhinged?’” Hune said. “And I settled on a country club, putting the whole thing within those castle walls.”
The relocation is more than cosmetic. Verdi adapted his libretto from Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor” and “Henry IV” plays, source material built on class posturing, petty scheming and the collision of ego with social order. For Hune, a director steeped in contemporary theater who has never staged a period-faithful Shakespeare production, the country club became a way to strip away the historical distance that can make opera feel remote.
“The men are acting like 13-year-old boys, and the women will socially decapitate you if you look at them the wrong way,” Hune said. “It’s situational, it’s fun, it’s Shakespeare through Verdi.”
The production also marks a series of firsts for the Shepherd School. It is the first time the entire creative team, including costume, scenic and lighting designers, is drawn from Houston’s theater community. It is also the first time Miguel Harth-Bedoya, the school’s distinguished resident director of orchestras, will conduct an opera production at the Shepherd School. He will lead a 51-piece orchestra, which is the largest pit ensemble to perform in Brockman Hall for Opera’s Morrison Theater. Harth-Bedoya will also offer preshow talks one hour before curtain on the orchestra level of Morrison Theater, open to all ticketholders.
“This show is incredibly hard to play for the orchestra and incredibly hard to sing for the cast,” said Joshua Winograde, director of opera studies. “Because the Shepherd School has a world-class orchestra and first-rate singers, we’re able to pull this off unlike any conservatory I’m aware of.”
Winograde described the final stage of preparation in physical terms, comparing his students to athletes drilling a routine until execution becomes instinct.
“They work, they prepare and then at a certain point, they’re just trying to stick the landing,” Winograde said. “Three performances give these students the opportunity to do exactly that.”
For audiences unfamiliar with opera, Hune offered a case for the art form itself and for this production as a point of entry.
“Opera allows us to sit, take in, be quiet and allow our minds to go to a more metaphorical place,” Hune said. “If you haven’t been exposed to opera, this would be a good in.”
“Falstaff” is sung in Italian with English surtitles. The production includes gunfire, haze and adult content. Tickets are required for all performances and can be purchased via the Shepherd School website.