The action takes place in and around Royal Windsor, England, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.
Act One
At the Garter Inn, after a run-in with Dr. Caius, Sir John Falstaff discovers that he is running short on cash. He plans to seduce Alice Ford and Meg Page, wives of two of Windsor’s wealthiest gentlemen. His thieving sidekicks, Bardolph and Pistol, refuse to deliver his love letters. Falstaff mocks their sense of “honor.”
At Ford’s house, Alice and Meg discover that they have received identical letters from Falstaff. They decide to play a joke on him. Ford arrives with Dr. Caius, Bardolph, Pistol and young Fenton, who is in love with Ford’s daughter Nannetta. Pistol tells Ford about the knight’s plan to dishonor Alice and empty his coffers. Ford decides to go to the inn in disguise and catch Falstaff. Meanwhile, the ladies enlist Mistress Quickly to lure Falstaff into a trap. Whenever they can steal a moment, Fenton and Nannetta enjoy a clandestine kiss.
Act Two
Back at the inn, Quickly brings Falstaff a response from the two ladies. Both return his affections, but Alice can meet him any afternoon between two and three, while her husband is out. A “Mister Brook” (Ford in disguise) wishes to make the knight’s acquaintance. “Brook” tells Falstaff that he has fallen in love with Alice; he promises the knight money for seducing her, explaining that if she slips once, she’ll most likely slip again. Falstaff happily accepts the challenge. Indeed, he admits, he is already well along with his own plan to cuckold Alice’s husband. Ford is stunned at his wife’s apparent infidelity.
Quickly returns to Ford’s house to tell Meg and Alice that Falstaff has taken the bait. Nannetta is in tears, for her father plans to marry her off to old Dr. Caius. Alice tells her not to worry. Servants enter with a basket of dirty laundry, while the ladies prepare their trap. Falstaff arrives and begins his seduction of Alice. The rendezvous is interrupted when Ford arrives in a jealous rage. Falstaff hides in the basket while Ford searches for him. Believing that Falstaff is hiding behind a screen, Ford throws it aside, only to discover Nannetta and Fenton kissing. Alice summons the servants to deal with the laundry. They struggle with the basket but finally manage to dump it—and Falstaff—into the Thames River.
Intermission
Act Three
Falstaff drowns his sorrows in wine. Quickly convinces him that Alice wants to meet him at midnight in Windsor Park, but he has to come dressed as a fairy-tale character, the Black Huntsman. Quickly overhears Ford promising Dr. Caius that he will marry Nannetta that evening.
At the park that night, Alice plots to foil her husband’s marriage plans for Nannetta. Midnight approaches. Falstaff enters wearing antlers on his head and wrapped in a huge black cloak. His encounter with Alice is interrupted, this time by the assembled company disguised as spirits, led by Nannetta as the Queen of Fairies. They torment Falstaff and force him to repent. The conspirators unmask, and Falstaff realizes that he has been duped yet again.
Ford suggests that, to end their festivities, they celebrate the marriage of the Fairy Queen. Dr. Caius steps forward and takes the hand of the Queen. When another masked couple steps forward as well, Ford performs a double wedding. Only afterward is it revealed that the veiled Queen was Bardolph and that Fenton and Nannetta were the masked couple. Falstaff tells Ford and Dr. Caius to be good losers: “All the world’s a joke, man is born a joker, and he who laughs last laughs best.”
In fond memory of Tara Colburn, supertitles are underwritten by Dunard Fund USA.
