Guiseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Verdi was born into the bel canto world of the operas of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti but soon began to demonstrate a strongly personal voice. Like Wagner, he’d attempted a comic opera early in his career (Un giorno di regno [A day’s reign/King for a day]) and, again like Wagner, it had been a resounding flop.
It wasn’t until the composer was nearly eighty that he returned to the genre. Casting about for a subject, Verdi eventually received a libretto from Arrigo Boito (see photo above) with whom he’d collaborated on their version of Shakespeare’s Othello (Otello). Boito – himself a fine composer – had knocked together three more Shakespearian plays, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry IV parts 1 & 2, to make an opera centred around the character of Sir John Falstaff, which he had – very sensibly – entitled Falstaff.
Verdi was delighted with the idea and, shelving worries about embarking on such a project at his advanced age, by 1893 the now eighty year old composer’s new opera, Falstaff, was given its first performance at La Scala, Milan.
Some excerpts:
Falstaff harangues Bardolf and Pistol when the two highly dubious characters, refuse to deliver Falstaff’s letters claiming it is dishonourable:
Meg and Alice receive the dishonourable letters:
Mistress Quickly delivers Alice’s reply (1):
Mistress Quickly delivers Alice’s reply (2):
Ford discovers his wife’s supposed infidelity…
… and gives way to anger:
An attempt at seduction:
Sir John, having been dumped in the Thames, takes a very gloomy view of the world, but then along comes a glass of mulled wine…
Poor Falstaff is fooled for the second time by a gang of fake fairies led by Alice’s daughter, Nannetta as fairy queen:
The finale (and the moral): ‘We’re all sometimes mocked, but he who laughs last, laughs longest!’
You can watch the whole opera by clicking on:
Falstaff
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The Art of Listening 