Verdi’s valedictory masterpiece returns to the stage where it premiered in the composer’s 81st year. Giorgio Strehler’s silvery production—originally mounted in 1993 in collaboration with Riccardo Muti, Verdi’s supreme living interpreter—is a masterpiece, too, at once Shakespearean to the core and soft with the mists of Verdi’s native Emilia-Romagna. The revival puts the baton in the hand of Daniele Gatti, a maestro sometimes keener to comment on the music than reveal it for what it is. Happily, his cast of principals is studded with Muti alumni. Ambrogio Maestri, the world’s reigning Falstaff, made his rollicking yet saturnine role debut with Muti in 2001 and has never forgotten Muti’s instruction. Luca Micheletti, lately Muti’s last Don Giovanni, is on hand as Ford, Windsor’s grouchiest husband, opposite Rosa Feola, a Muti favorite, as Alice, Ford’s merry wife. —Matthew Gurewitsch