Opera di Roma’s Falstaff goes out live on Rai 3 as 1 November becomes its televised opening night
Michele Mariotti will also conduct the next two openings on the same date: Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito in 2027 and Verdi’s five-act French Don Carlos in 2028.
The Opera di Roma’s new Falstaff, conducted by its music director Michele Mariotti and directed by Tatjana Gürbaca, will be broadcast live on Rai 3, and worldwide, on Sunday 1 November from 8.40pm. The performance at the Teatro Costanzi is the last of the run, an extra evening scheduled specially for the broadcast.
A fixed date in the calendar
The broadcast is set to become a fixture. From next year, 1 November will be the opening night of each Opera di Roma season, again shown in prime time on Rai 3. Mariotti will conduct both of the next two: Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito on 1 November 2027 and, on 1 November 2028, Verdi’s Don Carlos in the five-act French version.
The project began last year, when Rai 3 broadcast Puccini’s Tosca in the 125th anniversary year of the opera. Almost 600,000 people watched, according to the theatre’s sovrintendente, Francesco Giambrone, who said the collaboration with Rai was now being consolidated “with the aim of bringing the opening night of the Opera into everyone’s homes, bringing the theatre closer to people”. He added that the performances of Falstaff in the theatre had already drawn more than 10,000 spectators.
Fabrizio Zappi, director of Rai Cultura, said the broadcast confirmed Rai Cultura’s commitment to making great music accessible to the widest possible audience:
Opera can reach and surprise even those who don’t usually go, and television is an excellent way of bringing everyone the power of its language and the emotions it conveys.
Mariotti on Falstaff
For Mariotti, Falstaff is “a perfect theatrical laboratory” and suits television because it is a comedy, “even if you never really laugh – you smile, with Verdi’s typical disenchantment”. He described it as one of the most demanding scores in the repertoire for an orchestra, with virtuoso writing full of solo passages that calls for brilliance, precision and imagination in colour. Its structural freedom and the unique bond between pit and stage, he said, “make this opera the first great masterpiece that looks towards the 20th century”.
The cast
Gürbaca, making her Italian debut, directs Luca Salsi in the title role. The baritone has become a reference Falstaff in recent years, singing the part at the Vienna State Opera and the Liceu in Barcelona. Maria Agresta is Alice Ford, George Petean is Ford, Violeta Urmana is Mistress Quickly, Marina Monzò is Nannetta, Dave Monaco is Fenton and Carmen Artaza is Meg Page. Carlo Bosi (Dr Cajus), Paolo Antognetti (Bardolfo) and Gabriele Sagona (Pistola) complete the cast.
Ciro Visco is chorus master; the sets are by Henrik Ahr, costumes by Silke Willrett and lighting by Stefan Bolliger.
Falstaff, Teatro Costanzi, Rome: final performance Sunday 1 November 2026, live on Rai 3 from 8.40pm.
Information and tickets at operaroma.it.
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