By far the best opera based on Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor, is Verdi's Falstaff. But the lazy, cowardly, greedy, overweight, alcohol-soaked, sexually predatory, and somehow (despite everything) endearing antihero is big enough for more than one opera. Salieri's Falstaff is much simpler and smaller in scale than Verdi's, less inventive and energetic. But this is a sophisticated, funny, brightly performed treatment of Falstaff's attempt to woo two married women with identical love notes.
Culled from New York Philharmonic broadcasts spanning 75 years, this remarkable 10-disc compilation testifies to the strong-willed yet chameleon-like orchestra's virtuosity and versatility under a diverse assemblage of podium personalities. Stylistically speaking, the earlier items are the most interesting, revealing, for instance, a more vibrant Otto Klemperer and freer Arturo Toscanini than their later commercial efforts sometimes suggest. Other artists are heard in repertoire which they otherwise didn't record: Fritz Reiner's Brahms 2nd, Leonard Bernstein's Berg and Webern, and a wrenching concert version of Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle under Kubelík's direction, to name but a few. From program notes to transfer quality, not one stone is left unturned to ensure first-rate results.