When Verdi changed his tune from tragedy to carefree comedy
Giuseppe Verdi’s Falstaff (1893)
Based on Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, this is the final operatic inspiration of Verdi’s old age, first performed in 1893, shortly before the composer’s 80th birthday, and written, he claimed, merely to please himself. Its combination of mercurial energy, farcical wit and delicate sophistication, has never been equalled.
Plot
Two married ladies in Windsor, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, conspire to humiliate the lecherous Sir John Falstaff, who keeps bad company in a local inn and is chronically short of money. Mistress Ford’s husband, who isn’t party to the plot, believes he is being cuckolded, and the couple’s daughter Nannetta is flirting secretly with a local lad, Fenton. Falstaff is first lured into the Ford household, only to be forced to hide in a laundry basket that is eventually thrown into the Thames; he is then invited to a midnight assignation at the spooky Herne’s Oak in Windsor Forest, where he is scared out of his wits before the plot is uncovered, to universal hilarity.
Background
The idea for the opera came from the librettist Arrigo Boito, with whom Verdi had so successfully collaborated on a very different Shakespeare project, Otello, first performed in 1887. Verdi hadn’t written a comic opera since Un Giorno di Regno (King for a Day) in 1840, but he rose to the challenge with relish – albeit taking three years to complete the score and continuing to refine it painstakingly even after its premiere. Early productions were received with amazement as well as delight – audiences simply could not believe that someone so closely associated with elevated tragedy as Verdi could change his tune so radically to create something of such youthful and
It is devilishly difficult to perform, not least because of the splitsecond timing needed
carefree brilliance. A review written by the Irish composer Charles Villiers Stanford summed it up as “clear as crystal in construction, tender and explosive by turns, humorous and witty without a touch of extravagance or a note of vulgarity”.
Commentary
Falstaff represents Verdi’s homage to the great tradition of Italian opera buffa and the spirit of Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia. The score is a light-touch miracle of concision and grace, and, although it contains some more extended monologues (for both Falstaff and Ford), it is dominated by a vocal and orchestral playfulness that is prodigal with fleeting melodic invention – as in the exquisite music for Nannetta and Fenton’s snatched kissee-kissee romance or the gloriously expansive but half-mocking phrase that Mistress Ford reads out from her duplicitous love letter to Falstaff. One special jewel is Falstaff ’s miniature aria Quand’ero paggio, in which he describes to Mistress Ford his childhood employment as Page to the Duke of Norfolk: over a duration of barely 35 seconds, Verdi evokes a whole world of boyish mischief and nimble charm.
Another marvel is the eerie nocturnal music associated with Herne’s Oak, with its distant horn calls and skittering strings, and Nannetta’s invocation of the fairies (in truth, Windsor children in fancy dress schooled to taunt poor Falstaff).
The ensembles are evidence of Verdi’s superb technique, honed over his 50-year career. Only Mozart can match the sheer ingenuity with which the voices are interwoven and combined at the end of the second scene, as the wives hatch their plot, Ford and his cronies get suspicious and Nannetta and Fenton take amorous advantage of the adults’ distraction. Devilishly difficult to perform, not least because of the crisp diction, split-second comic timing and musical teamwork required, Falstaff comes across best in a small opera house such as Glyndebourne. Only long and rigorous rehearsal can generate its true sparkle and allow singers to let themselves go with the comedy while remaining 100 per cent focused on accuracy.
Recordings
The 1950 recording conducted by Arturo Toscanini remains without peers for its sheer vitality and impeccable quicksilver teamwork (RCA Gold Seal). Herbert von Karajan’s recording comes an honourable second, with better sound than Toscanini’s and fine performances from the likes of Tito Gobbi, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Anna Moffo and Rolando Panerai (Warner Classics).
Bryn Terfel’s classic interpretation of the title role can be relished on a DVD of Graham Vick’s Covent Garden production conducted by Bernard Haitink (Opus Arte), as well as through an elegant CD recording conducted by Claudio Abbado (Deutsche Grammophon). Also recommended on DVD is a performance from the 2009 Glyndebourne season, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, in a warmly engaging staging updated to the Windsor of the 1950s, directed by Richard Jones (Opus Arte). For a more traditional approach, there is Franco Zeffirelli’s Tudorbethan production from the Metropolitan Opera (Deutsche Grammophon).