Verdi: Falstaff (Salzburg Festival, 1982, Directed by: Karajan)

“Falstaff,” partly based on Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” is Giuseppe Verdi’s final work for the stage—and only his second comic opera. The humor in this multifaceted masterpiece is decidedly ironic: all the main characters possess a range of human weaknesses that Verdi and his librettist Arrigo Boito expose mercilessly, yet with a twinkle in their eye. At the legendary 1982 Salzburg Festival performance, Herbert von Karajan conducted the brilliantly performing Vienna Philharmonic and also directed the production. The wonderful set design is by Günther Schneider-Siemssen.