Shanghai Grand Opera House: a Falstaff licensed for 28 September, the last day of the stress-test window

Verdi's Falstaff will be given once at the Shanghai Grand Opera House on 28 September 2026 at 19:30. The source is a performance permit granted by the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism on 28 August, not an announcement: 沪文旅许[2026]4769号 names the licensee as Shanghai Grand Theatre Management, the company that operates the opera house, and registers 160 performers for a single sitting under the route required when at least one artist comes from outside the mainland.

It is the third pre-opening performance we have found in the permit feed, after the concert Rigoletto on 15 August and the Shanghai Symphony's concert on 23 August. All three name the same licensee.

Why 28 September matters

The house has said it will run around ten stress tests before its official opening on 17 October, from 15 August to 28 September, one or two a week across its three halls — 2,000 seats, 1,200 and 1,000 — with the Shanghai Opera House, Shanghai Ballet, Shanghai Symphony and Shanghai Song and Dance Ensemble each taking one. This date is the last day of that window, and 160 is the largest complement of the three permits.

We read it as the closing test. That is our reading, not the theatre's statement.

What the page does not say

Not the hall. The permit gives only the licence holder and the street address at 1 Yongzhan Road, which all three halls share; Rigoletto could be placed in the 1,200-seat hall because its own permit said so. Not the company, the conductor or the cast either — the document does not carry them. Stress tests have not been sold to the public, so there is no ticketing to report.

Falstaff was Verdi's last opera, first given at La Scala in 1893 when he was approaching eighty, to a libretto by Boito drawn from The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry IV. It was his second comedy and his only successful one — the first, Un giorno di regno, failed at its 1840 premiere. It ends with a fugue on the line that everything in the world is a joke.

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