VERDI wrote Falstaff 40 years after La Traviata.

Times had changed, and instead of long arias the old man produced a profusion of multi-coloured melodic fragments, like a grandfather scattering Smarties.

It is a piece of astonishing originality, delivered here with refreshing dash by conductor Jonathan Lyness, and a fine cast of singers led by Simon Thorpe in the title role.

His light baritone has an elegance that belies the fat knight's bulk; Christopher Diffey brought a distinctively pure English tenor sound to the role of Fenton.

Craig Smith was an impressive Ford, vengeful, raging, yet never losing precision or sweetness of tone.

The female principals were equally impressive.

Linda Richardson is a commanding Alice Ford, and Helen Massey (Nannetta) achieves magical effects over the shimmering score.

It was therefore a pity that the woodwinds were allowed to intrude over what Verdi preferred to be an unaccompanied Act One quartet with the Mistress Quickly and Meg Page of Gaynor Keeble and Stephanie Lewis.

Before the premiere of his final opera, the composer told a British newspaper that while writing the music he had often laughed at the drollery of Boito's libretto.

He would no doubt have taken pleasure, like Falstaff himself, from being a source of wit and a cause of wit in others.

Sadly, the spell does not seem to have worked on Richard Studer's occasionally clumsy production, which could do with rather more comic invention.

Studer also designed the costumes so must take responsibility for Falstaff's most prominent feature, which looks as if someone stuffed an eiderdown up his shirt, and for the hideous costumes imposed on all the blokes.

Pity poor Mr Diffey trying to play the romantic hero in shaggy pantaloons and white tights.

Colin Davison