Preview: Craig Colclough Brings Comic Swagger to Verdi’s ‘Falstaff’ at LA Opera

Giuseppe Verdi’s Falstaff returns to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for the first time since 2013, serving as the second-to-last production in James Conlon’s farewell season after two decades as LA Opera’s Music Director. Conducting one of his most frequently championed works, Conlon leads Verdi’s final opera, a late-career comedy that remains one of the composer’s most agile and inventive scores. (Conlon’s final engagement with the company follows Falstaff with Mozart’s The Magic Flute, running May 30th through June 21st.)

Set in Windsor, England, Falstaff follows the cash-strapped Sir John Falstaff as he attempts to improve his fortunes by courting two wealthy married women at once. His plan quickly unravels when Alice Ford and Meg Page discover they have received identical love letters and decide to turn the tables on him. What follows is a brisk chain of disguises, jealous husbands, romantic entanglements, and escalating pranks that culminate in one final public humiliation for the swaggering knight.

At the center is bass-baritone extraordinaire Craig Colclough in the title role, a Southern California-based performer, not only well-acquainted but beloved by LA Opera audiences through his sharply defined comic turns. For instance, his Leporello in Don Giovanni and Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro demonstrated a command of timing and hijinks that aligns naturally with Sir John Falstaff, Verdi’s boastful and perpetually scheming antihero.

When it originally premiered in 1893, Falstaff surprised audiences accustomed to Verdi’s grand tragedies with its brisk pacing and intricate ensemble writing. Drawing from Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, the opera closes the composer’s career with remarkable lightness and precision, ending not in heartbreak, but in laughter.

This revival brings back Lee Blakeley’s original staging, presented here under the direction of Shawna Lucey, situating the action in a richly detailed vision of Elizabethan England, supported by set and costume designer Adrian Linford and lighting designer Pablo Santiago. The ensemble cast includes soprano Nicole Heaston as Alice Ford, Ernesto Petti as Ford, and soprano Deanna Breiwick as Nannetta, with Seoul native Hyona Kim as Mistress Quickly, Anthony León as Fenton, Sarah Saturnino as Meg Page, tenor Yuntong Han as Bardolph, bass Vinícius Costa as Pistol, and Nathan Bowles as Dr. Caius, joining the side-splitting machinations, flirtations, and reversals that keep the comedy in motion.

For Los Angeles audiences, the return of Falstaff offers a chance to revisit a work that closes Verdi’s career not with solemnity, but with wit, precision, and musical vitality — qualities that resonate strongly in a production led by a longtime company favorite in Colclough and conducted by Conlon as part of a defining farewell season.

Cover image caption: Craig Colclough as Sir John Falstaff in LA Opera’s 2026 production of Falstaff at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, CA. Photo is by Cory Weaver.

LA Opera’s Falstaff runs from Saturday, April 18th through Sunday, May 10th. For tickets and further information on the production, visit laopera.org.