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FALSTAFF
FALSTAFF
Baritone Philip Joll as Sir John Falstaff

"I am living with the immense Sir John, with the pot-belly, his habit of making beds give way under him, chairs collapse, mules are exhausted, with a skinful of sweet wine, like a lump of butter on legs, amidst the casks of sherry and the fun and games of that hot kitchen at the Garter Inn."

Boito to Verdi,
correspondence
dated August 20, 1889

 

 

 

Falstaff and Mistress Quickly, arranging for the tryst with Mistress Ford.

 

Master Ford, in a cautious moment. [David Malis] Baritone Philip Joll as Falstaff - dressed for a moonlight encounter.
The two identical love letters are compared, resulting in delight or dismay. Pistola and Bardolph.

 

"Pot-belly is now well on the way to madness. There are some days when he doesn't move, when he sleeps and is in a bad mood; at other times he shouts, runs, jumps around, kicks up a hell of a row... I'm letting him have his way for a while; but if he carries on, I'll put a muzzle and strait-jacket on him."

Verdi to Boito,
correspondence dated June 12, 1891
The Fat Knight, squeezed into the laundry basket... but it gets worse.

 

 

Young lovers - Fenton and Nanetta. Would-be lovers - Mistress Alice Ford and Falstaff

 

 

 
 FALSTAFF:

"Buono. Ber del vin dolce e sbottonarsi al sole'
Dolce cosa! Il buon vinno sperde le tetre fole
Della sconforto, accende l'occhio e il pensier..."

"That's better. To drink good wine and unbutton in the sun is very sweet.
Good wine dispels the gloomy thoughts
of discouragement, lights up the eye and wit..."
Falstaff, contemplating defeat

 

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CAPTIONS
top left
Sir John Falstaff, The Fat Knight of Shakespeare.
[baritone Philip Joll]
second row
Falstaff and Dame Quickly, arranging for his visit to Mistress Ford - he is perfectly convinced that she will not be able to resist him, not realizing that the ladies see right through him and are already planning to forestall his plans.
[baritone Philip Joll and mezzo-soprano Sharon Graham]
block - top left
Ford has been told that his wife is secretly meeting Sir John Falstaff - unaware that she and her friends are using the meeting as a way to get back at him, Ford plots his own revenge against Falstaff.
[baritone David Malis acting with the body as well as with the voice]		 block - top right
Falstaff, in disguise, awaits his fateful rendez-vous in the forest at midnight. The opera introduces the phantasmagorical aspect to this scene, making it far more magical than Shakespeare's original Windsor Park treatment. Most magical of all is the fugue that ends the opera.
[baritone Philip Joll]
block - lower left
Meg Page, Nanetta, Alice Ford and Dame Quickly compare Falstaff's love letters sent to Mistresses Page and Ford and find - to Meg's dismay and everyone else's hilarity - they are identical.
[sopranos Carla Wood, Annelies Chapman, Deborah Riedel and mezzo Sharon Graham]

"...but I say, love me. By me,
    Thine own true knight,
    By day or night,
    Or any kind of light,
    With all his might
    For thee to fight, JOHN FALSTAFF" 

MISTRESS PAGE
    Letter for letter, but that the name of Page and Ford differs! ... I warrant he hath a thousand of these letters, writ with blank space for different names..."

 block - lower right
Pistola and Bardolph engage in a bit of stumbling, bumbling physical humor. Lasting only a few seconds onstage, it takes much, much longer in rehearsal to get the moves and the timing exactly right.
[bass Ryan Allen and tenor Peter Blanchet]
Deborah Riedel in rehearsal Deborah Riedel plays Alice Ford in rehearsal and on stage - Deb usually sings tragic, dramatic parts... but she's a gifted comic actress. Deborah Riedel as Mistress Alice Ford
 

fifth row
Falstaff is hidden in the laundry basket - although this scene comes from the Shakespearean original play, there is a greater sense of fun in the opera.
[baritone Philip Joll]
sixth row - left
Fenton and Nanetta get the young-lover music to sing, and they are more genuinely romantic in the opera than in the play.

[tenor Bruce Fowler and soprano Annelies Chapman]

 sixth row - right
Falstaff pays a courting call on Alice Ford.
[baritone Philip Joll with rose, soprano Deborah Riedel with lute]

FALSTAFF
    "Indeed, I am in the waist two yards about; but I am now about no waste; I am about thrift. Briefly, I do mean to make love to Ford's wife: I spy entertainment in her..."
bottom
Outside the Garter Inn, following his narrow escape in the laundry basket, Falstaff contemplates his next move. [baritone Philip Joll]
 

 

 

BEHIND THE SCENES
VERDI, BOITO & SHAKESPEARE             
Giuseppe Verdi was one of the great masters of operatic writing in the 19th century - but the last two operas he wrote are his finest. At 74, he thought he had retired... until Arrigo Boito showed up. A poet and sometime-composer, Boito and Verdi had worked together before in revising Verdi's Simon Boccanegra.

Now with support from the music publisher Ricordi and from Verdi's wife, Boito gently courted the older, irascible Verdi into transforming Shakespeare's Othello into operatic form. Boito proved to be masterful himself at turning five acts of Elizabethan

 Arrigo Boito and Giuseppe Verdi, librettist and composer.
blank verse into a tightly knit, continuously structured libretto for Verdi to work with. In 1887, the result was a triumph at the premiere in La Scala, Milan, and Otello continues to be regarded as Verdi's greatest masterpiece.

Turning from the most profound tragedy to completely frivolous comedy, Boito next took the 23 characters in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor and reduced them to 10, changed the structure, added bits and pieces of Sir John's appearances from other plays, and turned Falstaff over to the composer. Characteristically Italian, Boito had emphasized Falstaff's sexual appetities more than his lust for money, and Verdi responded with music of sexual anticipation and sensuality, not only for Falstaff, but for the other characters, too. The "merry wives" are more knowing, more clever, less bourgeois than the originals. Everyone is more emotional, more sensual, and having more fun - now that's Italian!
 
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San Diego Opera presents
FALSTAFF  by Giuseppe Verdi
January/February 1999
Conductor Edoardo Müller
Director Ian Campbell
Set Design Peter Dean Beck
Costume Design Charles R. Caine
Sir John Falstaff Philip Joll
Alice Ford Deborah Riedel
Dame Quickly Sharon Graham
Meg Page Carla Wood
Ford David Malis
Bardolfo Peter Blanchet
Pistola Ryan Allen
Dr Caius Paul Ferris
Fenton Bruce Fowler
Nannetta Annelies Chapman

 

 

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original content © copyright 1999-2005 ML Hart and images © copyright 1999-2005 ML Hart except where noted
all quotations from: the libretto of Falstaff by Arrigo Boito,
correspondence between Boito and Verdi (translation ©1994 by Paul Guinery), and from William Shakespeare
photograph of Boito and Verdi in the early 1890s - photograph: Archivio Storico Ricordi, Milan

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