The Merry Wives of Windsor - a guerrilla opera,
2023
Grimeborn Opera Festival, London

Role: Mrs. Ford

Conductor: Knut Erik Jensen
Director: Kristin Lundemo Overøye, 
Lars Harald Maagerø

Invited by Grimeborn Opera Festival in London 2023, Skeive 
Stemmer (Queer Voices) presented a performance based on 
The Merry Wives of Windsor, an opera with music by 
Otto Nicolai based on a comedy by William Shakespeare

“The Merry Wives” tells the story of the knight John Falstaff who 
tries to seduce two married wives, but ends up being laughed at 
by an entire local community. Central is the conflict between the 
sexes - how gender and sexuality play into relationships and which 
power plays underlie our actions. The conflict between the wives 
and the knight, but also between the wives and their jealous 
husbands, and between the young daughter and her three suitors. 
This particular story works well for the purpose of breaking some 
expectations both for the audience and the cast. Skeive Stemmer 
then has proposed: 
“The Merry Wives in Windsor - a guerrilla opera-performance”

In our version, the archaic fat and sexist male character Falstaff 
is transformed into the liberated and gender-nonconforming Falstaff. 
The conformist Windsor mirrors societies’ attitudes towards those 
of us who break the binary and the final punishment in Act 3 where 
the wives originally forgive Falstaff is turned upside down. 
The audience becomes an active participant in the scene by not 
interfering when it is clear that Falstaff’s punishment is less about 
their behaviour towards the women and more so how they perform 
gender, resulting in Falstaff forgiving us all for how we treated them 
and those of us like them

Skeive Stemmer wanted to create a performance that, through 
measures such as non-traditional casting and the abolition of the 
traditional opera hierarchy, plays with and challenges the traditional 
gender roles in the play. Which voice types get the roles in this 
production has been decided based on which people can add new 
depth and a more diverse perspective to the roles. Finally, the 
performers themselves can help shape the roles in the way they 
see them evolving

The hierarchy where the director and the conductor are at the top 
will thus be broken down.The story often takes place in a pub, and 
our performance had its premiere in the Theatre Café at Rosendal, 
Trondheim, Norway. The LGBTQIA community has long had to hide 
or meet after sunset, in movie theatres or basements and queer 
culture is intertwined with nightlife. Skeive Stemmer wanted to use 
this to transform the theatre cafe from a historic black/white 
cinema into a colourful nightlife. This is also reflected in 
costume/make-up design.

Photo: Talitha-Rose Khachik