--- title: Music: Falstaff description: Bryn Terfel canonical: https://time.com/archive/6665214/music-falstaff/ author: Terry Teachout article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2001-11-12T05:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-22T06:00:23.372Z article:section: U.S. og:title: Music: Falstaff og:description: Bryn Terfel og:url: https://time.com/archive/6665214/music-falstaff/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Music: Falstaff twitter:description: Bryn Terfel twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # Music: Falstaff by [Terry Teachout](/author/terry-teachout/) Nov 12, 2001 5:00 AM CUT by [Terry Teachout](/author/terry-teachout/) Nov 12, 2001 5:00 AM CUT Lascivious, preposterous, acutely human: that’s Shakespeare’s fat knight, set to music by Verdi. Now Bryn Terfel, Wales’ contribution to the gaiety of nations, has put the best of all possible comic operas on record, igniting every line with his sly wit and redwood-sized bass-baritone voice. Don’t throw away your old Toscanini album–Claudio Abbado’s conducting is sometimes a bit fussy–but Terfel is as fine a Falstaff as has ever lived, and Thomas Hampson is splendid as Ford, the hypersuspicious husband whom Sir John longs to cuckold. If current events are weighing you down, let Verdi buoy you back up. Where there are laughs, there is hope. –By Terry Teachout ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6665214/music-falstaff/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6665214/music-falstaff/"},"headline":"Music: Falstaff","datePublished":"2001-11-12T05:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-22T06:00:23.372Z","description":"Bryn Terfel","url":"https://time.com/archive/6665214/music-falstaff/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Terry Teachout","url":"https://time.com/author/terry-teachout/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6665214/music-falstaff/","name":"Music: Falstaff"}}]}] ```