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GIUSEPPE VERDI

FALSTAFF

CONTENTS

SYNOPSIS P.

INCLUSION OF AN OUTSIDER MARCO ARTURO MARELLI IN AN INTERVIEW P.

ANSWERS IN THE MUSIC ANDREAS LÁNG P.

SHAKESPEARE EGON FRIEDELL P.

FALSTAFF – IN HISTORY AND IN SHAKESPEARE OLIVER LÁNG

MUSICAL VERSIONS OF THE FALSTAFF STORY P.

ALL JUST A GAME ANDREAS LÁNG P.

THE MUSIC IN FALSTAFF BARBARA MEIER P.

“I PRAY YOU, FATHER, BEING WEAK, SEEM SO” ADRIAN MOURBY P.

IMPRINT

GIUSEPPE VERDI

FALSTAFF COMMEDIA LIRICA in three acts Text ARRIGO BOITO Based on The Merry Wives of Windsor (as well as short excerpts from Henry IV) by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

ORCHESTRA

STAGE MUSIC

2 flutes / 1 piccolo / 2 oboes 2 clarinets / 1 bass clarinet 2 bassoons / 4 horns / 3 trumpets 3 trombones / 1 bass trombone timpani / percussion harp / guitar violin I / violin II / viola cello / double bass horn / bell

AUTOGRAPH

Ricordi archives Milan

WORLD PREMIÈRE 9 FEB 1893 Teatro alla Scala PREMIÈRE AT THE HOUSE ON THE RING 21 MAY 1893 (guest performance by the Teatro alla Scala) Vienna Court Opera PREMIÈRE AT THE HOUSE ON THE RING 3 MAY 1904 (first own production) Vienna Court Opera DURATION

2 H 30 M

INCL. 1 INTERMISSION

OLIVER LÁNG

FALSTAFF – IN HISTORY AND IN SHAKESPEARE “Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief!” Falstaff says on first entering to Prince Henry, later his king. And so Shakespeare introduces his hero, or anti-hero, in the play Henry IV, Part I. It is in the knight’s interests not to punish the underworld too harshly. This Falstaff is no moral crusader, no lithe and lissom, intellectually dressedup doubter who is dying of world weariness and the perfidiousness of the world. He is stout and hearty, anything but genteel, and above all not necessarily the most law-abiding of subjects. Indeed, this character should deliberately be dubious, to show how questionable the life of the young prince, later King Henry V, in fact was. Anyone who has such drinking companions is not to be completely trusted. But who was Falstaff really? Did he live? An indirect ancestor of the character created by Shakespeare is the English knight Sir John Oldcastle. He lived from the end of the 14th century to the early 15th century and was a friend of Henry V, but basically bore little resemblance to the later comedic figure. A member of the Lollard movement, he was in the group of followers of John Wyclif. They demanded

church reform, attacked the papacy and the institution of the church, rejected a number of institutions and rules and wanted to break away from Rome. When Wyclif was sentenced by the Council of Constance, his followers were deemed heretics. Oldcastle too was accused and brought to trial. King Henry V came through for him and succeeded in obtaining a reprieve for his favourite. In the meantime, Oldcastle managed to escape from the Tower of London. Later, when in reasonable safety, he tried to engineer a riot and was known as a constant firebrand who was also against the monarchy and royal house. With the corresponding results: after years on the run, he was captured in 1417, convicted and hung from the gallows; for safety’s sake, he was also burned. Sir John Oldcastle already appears as Henry V’s companion in an anonymous 1588 Elizabethan drama The Famous Victories of Henry V that Shakespeare would have been familiar with. Shakespeare had him appear in his Henry plays, but had to change the name of the knight when his descendants objected. And so Oldcastle was renamed Falstaff. Why Falstaff? Possibly because the name was reminiscent

FA LSTA FF – IN HISTORY A N D IN SH A K E SPEA R E

of another previously used character: Sir John Fastolf, a coward who had actually lived. In response to Shakespeare’s Oldcastle/Falstaff, in 1599 a competing group published The First Part of the True and Honourable History of the Life of Sir John Oldcastle, the good Lord Cobham in which the knight is portrayed as a pugnacious martyr. But to get back to the Shakespeare’s character in Henry IV, who is one thing above all else: impressive. In his corpulence, his manner of speaking, his roguish demeanour. Indeed, what a contrast to political correctness, what manners riddled with faux pas. And so close to the king! This “knight of the order of the night”, whom Henry calls a “woolsack” (and much worse), knows that discretion is the better part of valour. No great hero, then, no great fighter. And yet someone who wins the sympathy of the audience. Precisely his rather unprepossessing appearance and behaviour are, or so the story tells us, so appealing to the nobility and Queen Elizabeth I that after the first Henry play, they wanted Shakespeare to write a separate Falstaff play, or more precisely a play of Sir John Falstaff in Love. For the general amusement of the court, who had grown fond of the lout. It took just two weeks for the play – The Merry Wives of Windsor – to be completed, so it is said, although it must be added that this could be part of the reason for its comparatively weak workmanship. The Merry Wives of Windsor is more a farce than bravura comedy and is very simple in some aspects. Whether the story of its rapid creation is more legend or truth is difficult to assess. However, it does seem that allusions in the text indicate that it

was first performed at court (on the occasion of new appointment of Knights of the Order of the Garter). Regardless. It must have been around 1597 when this Falstaff farce was first performed, and it is based on wellknown narratives: Italian Renaissance comedies, assorted traditional tales from Roman antiquity, but also the popular Ralph Roister Doister by Nicholas Udall written in the mid-16th century and regarded as the very first extant English comedy. However, since Falstaff had now arrived in the bourgeois world – The Merry Wives of Windsor is no royal drama – Falstaff too is no longer such a contrast to the (aristocratic) world around him. He is a bankrupt imposter, a loser who overestimates himself, often cherished by audiences, but no thorn in the flesh. The comedy draws its momentum more from the duped menfolk. In this world, the victory is won by the women, the women and the young generation. Shakespeare makes use of him again twice: in Henry IV, Part II and finally in Henry V. However, that is where fate catches up with him: he does not appear, there is merely a report of his death, which is banal and unspectacular. Mistress Quickly gives an account of it in several succinct sentences. And two acts later an officer reports on Falstaff, as if in a sad farewell song: “he was full of jokes, catcalls, tricks and antics; I have forgotten his name.” A tragic end? Yes, when it comes to being forgotten. But perhaps Falstaff would not have been especially interested in what posterity thought of him. Without question, what was important to Falstaff was the moment, and enjoying life. As we know, he did that to the full.

MUSICAL VERSIONS OF THE FALSTAFF STORY JEAN PAPAVOINE Le vieux coquet ou Les deux amis, opéra comique in three acts, Paris 1761 FRANCOIS-ANDRÉ DANICAN PHILIDOR Herne le chasseur, Paris 1773 PETER RITTER Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, comic opera in three acts, Mannheim 1794 KARL DITTERS VON DITTERSDORF Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, comic opera in three acts, Oels 1796 ANTONIO SALIERI Falstaff ossia Le tre burle, opera comica in two acts, Vienna 1799

SAVERIO MERCADANTE La Gioventù di Enrico V, opera in four acts, Milan 1834 MICHAEL BALFE Falstaff, opera buffa in 2 acts, London 1838 OTTO NICOLAI Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, comic opera in three acts, Berlin 1849 AMBROISE THOMAS Le Songe d’une nuit d’été, opéra comique in three acts, Paris, 18501 ADOLPHE ADAM Falstaff, opéra comique in one act, Paris 1856 GIUSEPPE VERDI Falstaff, commedia lirica in three acts, Milan 1893 GEORG SCHÖNFELD Falstaff, farce, Berlin 1893 GUSTAV HOLST At The Boar’s Head, musical interlude in one act, Manchester 1925 RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Sir John in Love, opera in four acts, London 1929

1 Although the title seems to refer to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the piece contains Falstaff themes

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