It is a curious thing that, though critics are unanimous in saying that
_The Merry Wives of Windsor_ is the weakest comedy Shakespeare ever
wrote, it has directly inspired one opera of first-class
importance--Verdi's _Falstaff_, by some considered the finest comic
opera in the world; also Nicolai's _Merry Wives of Windsor_, a
first-rate opera in the second division, as it were, still constantly
played in Germany, and here by the Carl Rosa Opera Company; and Balfe's
comic opera _Falstaff_, produced at Her Majesty's, July 19, 1838. This
work is not so easy to place; it is essentially Italian music, and
shows how wonderfully adaptable Balfe's genius was.
+Braham, Parry,+ and +Horn+ wrote numbers for a musical version of this
play, which was produced in London in 1823, but I cannot trace the
score nor any of the numbers.
We will take +Balfe's+ opera first. There was a fine cast for the
first production--Grisi, Rubini, Tamburini, with Lablache as Falstaff:
so the work had every opportunity, as far as singers were concerned,
but it never passed into the opera repertory, and few people now have
heard of it. Perhaps the libretto by S. M. Maggioni may have helped
_Falstaff_ into its present oblivion. The work opens with a
conventional overture, a slow introduction and a quick second part,
getting quicker towards the end--the sort of overture that would suit
almost any comedy-opera as well as _The Merry Wives_. After the
overture comes a duet for Page and Ford; then Falstaff's entrance and
song. {81} It is impossible to follow the plot clearly, as there is a
great deal of spoken dialogue; but all the principals have very "fat"
bits. The composer was obviously writing for singers whom he knew
well, and he did not bother much about character, colour, Windsor, or
Queen Elizabeth's time; everything is perfectly vocal, and the melodies
are quite pleasant.
Balfe certainly had a wonderful gift for melody, but there is no drama
at all in the work. Parts of it would sound quite well in a
concert-hall, but I could not trust it on the stage. At the end,
instead of fairies tormenting Sir John, a chorus of witches is
introduced for that purpose, and they do it quite effectively. The
work ends with a brilliant ensemble for the principals and chorus, with
Grisi "coloraturing" all over the place. The opera is only in two
acts, so a good deal of plot is omitted; still, the work is
interesting, if merely from the fact that Balfe is the only British
composer who has written an opera, _The Bohemian Girl_, which has been
played, and is being played, all over the world. It is the fashion for
"superior people" to sneer at Balfe, but _The Bohemian Girl_ is the
sole English opera in the international repertory.
+Nicolai's+ opera, _Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor_, book by
Mosenthal, produced at Berlin in 1849, is now a classic. The overture
is quite beautiful; the second subject so attracted Wagner that he
"pinched" it and put it into the _Meistersinger_. The libretto is very
well done, too. Although none of the rest of the opera quite reaches
this high level, all is very good.
After the overture, Mistress Page and Mistress Ford enter with their
letters, and the plot gets under way at once. No tiresome preliminary
chorus, but straight to the story. In this charming duet is hatched
the plot for the undoing of Falstaff. Fenton is made into a much
larger and more important _role_ than Shakespeare conceived; in point
of fact, he is the solo tenor lover, and much very pretty music is
given to him. All Sir John's music is very expressive {82} of the man,
and, though vocal, is suited to the character. With the exception of
the enlargement of Master Fenton's part, Nicolai's librettist sticks
closely to Shakespeare's text; but there are occasional excrescences,
mostly harmless. At the opening of the second act, Falstaff sings a
song, with male chorus, the words of which begin with the famous
Clown's song at the end of _Twelfth Night_, "When that I was and a
little tiny boy"; but after a few lines it grows into a drinking song.
Anyway, there's some Shakespeare in it, and it is a first-rate number.
The third act opens with a ballad about Herne the Hunter and his oak
for Mistress "Reich" (Ford). It is a very weird and effective song,
and in excellent contrast to the music which has preceded it. Sweet
Anne Page also has much more to do in this version of the story than in
Shakespeare's; but in opera one must have young lovers, and Falstaff
and Mistresses Ford and Page are not quite romantic enough for the
average opera audience. The grotesque music for Slender and Dr Caius
is wonderfully done, and full of quiet humour. After the "Herne"
ballad Sweet Anne Page sings a long and almost tiresome aria, but this
is followed by the Moon chorus scene, which opens with the same _motif_
as the overture. The orchestra plays the beautiful melody, and the
chorus sustains long, _pianissimo_ six-part harmonies. The whole
effect is very fine. Next comes a ballet with chorus of fairies, also
on themes used in the overture. Whenever Nicolai employs a theme from
the overture the whole work seems to rise in value and become quite
first-rate. With Fenton disguised as Oberon, King of the Fairies, and
Anne Page as Titania, Falstaff is "put through the hoops," even as he
is in Shakespeare's play, and a very melodious trio begins the finale.
This is sung by the three ladies--Anne, Mistress Page, and Mistress
Ford. Near the end Falstaff joins in, and for the last fourteen bars
principals and chorus sing an _ensemble_.
It is indeed a very merry work, and curiously Shakespearian; all the
parts are showy to sing and to act, the {83} music, though full of
character, is thoroughly vocal, and the orchestration is never too
heavy for the singers. As a comic opera it is quite one of the best in
the world, and fully deserves its place in the repertory of opera for
all time.
We now come to the third opera founded on _The Merry Wives of Windsor_,
+Verdi's+ _Falstaff_, libretto by Boito. After the production of
_Otello_, 1887, the composer was silent operatically; but in 1893, at
the age of eighty, he produced _Falstaff_, and astounded the entire
musical world. The work was produced at the Scala, Milan, February 9,
and its success was instantaneous. The book by Boito is, as the score
says, "derived from Shakespeare's _Merry Wives of Windsor_, and from
certain passages of _Henry IV._ having relation to the personality of
Falstaff," and is a masterpiece of construction and adaptation.
The opera is in three acts, each act being in two parts. Shallow,
Page, Slender, Sir Hugh, Nym, Simple, and Rugby all go. Certain lines
have to be transposed. For instance, in Act i, Scene 1, Caius speaks
Shallow's lines, beginning "You have beaten my men"; but these things
are necessary in converting a five-act comedy, with two scenes, into a
three-act lyrical comedy with six scenes. Sweet Anne Page becomes
Annetta Ford, and her part and Master Fenton's are much written up; in
fact, they become a very pretty pair of lovers, and their frequent
love-duets are beautifully melodious, and never sentimental. Bardolph
(tenor) becomes an important part, and he pursues his old master after
his dismissal with the utmost malignancy. The scene is Windsor in the
time of Henry IV. Falstaff is a baritone. Victor Maurel, the great
French baritone, created the part.
As is usual with this composer's later work, there is no overture, the
curtain rising on the interior of the Garter Inn at the fourth bar of
an _allegro vivace_. Sir John has just sealed the two love-letters.
Dr Caius (tenor) enters angrily and abuses Falstaff nearly in Shallow's
words; Falstaff pays no attention, but calls for sherry, and in a
brilliant scene the Doctor accuses Falstaff and his followers {84} of
making him drunk and robbing him. After Caius's exit, Sir John calls
for his bill and sings a song of his wandering from inn to inn,
following the light shed by Bardolph's nose, and setting forth how much
it has cost him (Falstaff) to get it into its present condition. He
then produces the letters, and Pistol and Bardolph refuse to bear them.
Falstaff bundles them out of the room and the scene ends. The whole of
the music in these comedy scenes is as light as air, the action is
wonderfully swift, and every nuance in the words is reflected in the
orchestration. It is only necessary to comment on a few features, as
the original story is so well known and Boito follows it fairly closely
now. There are no real numbers that can be separated from the main
body; no songs or concerted pieces that it would be wise to perform
apart from the context: the whole work is so welded into one
homogeneous whole that it would be sacrilege to do scraps on the
concert platform. There are no numbers, like the "Preis" song or Hans
Sachs' soliloquies from Wagner's great comic opera, that can be
performed with great effect at concerts: with Verdi's _Falstaff_ it is
all or nothing. The reading of the letter by Mistress Ford makes a
fine comic effect, and the unaccompanied quartet for the four
ladies--Page, Ford, Sweet Anne, and Mrs Quickly--that follows it is a
rare bit of vocal writing. The concerted writing throughout is
splendid--the counterpoint is _never_ obtrusive, but always there,--and
the orchestration a wonderful combination of lightness and strength.
To return to the plot. Falstaff comes only once to Ford's house, and
is thrown out of a window into the Thames, so never escapes as the wise
woman of Brentford. A very amusing effect, though not in Shakespeare,
is obtained during Ford's mad search for Sir John. Fenton and Anne
Page have hidden behind a curtain. In the middle of the fearful din
everyone is making there comes a sudden pause, during which the lovers
kiss audibly. Ford at once thinks it is Sir John and his wife, creeps
up to the arras, jerks it aside, and discloses his daughter and her
forbidden lover, {85} much to Ford's anger and the lovers' mutual
embarrassment! During this act Falstaff sings to Mistress Ford the
fine song about his youth, "Once I was page to the Duke of Norfolk."
Though Verdi does not use the _leit-motif_ in the ordinary sense of the
word, much use is made of a triplet figure. Mistress Quickly employs
it first to announce to Sir John his appointment with Mistress Ford.
It is used by Sir John when he announces to Ford, disguised as Brook,
his appointment with Ford's wife. Unfortunately, the original Italian
cannot be, or has not been, rendered into the same number of syllables
in the English version (I am speaking of Ricordi's edition), so there
is one syllable missing, which spoils the whole effect. This figure is
used wonderfully as an accompaniment during the duet that follows, and
the eighty-year-old composer gets heaps of natural boyish fun (though
technically marvellous) out of those six notes.
The first part of the third act opens with, for Verdi, quite a long
introduction, _agitato_ in nature, on the theme that interrupts
Falstaff's love-making in the previous act. The scene is the exterior
of the Garter Inn. Falstaff is alone, and sings his famous soliloquy
on the wicked, treacherous world. He calls for wine, drinks deeply,
and begins to feel better. He mixes the sack with the Thames water he
has swallowed, and sings, "How sweet it is to drink good wine while
basking in the sunshine." Mistress Quickly comes on, and makes the
appointment for Herne's oak at midnight. She begins the story of Herne
the Hunter very impressively, and Mistress Page finishes it.
The next and last scene takes place a little before midnight, at the
oak in Windsor Park. Anne Page and Fenton open with a love-duet, and
as the bell strikes twelve Sir John enters wearing a pair of antlers.
After a short scene with Mistress Page, Anne Page is heard as Fairy
Queen summoning her wood nymphs, dryads, and goblins. Falstaff falls
on his face, and the fairies enter. There is a long and beautiful sort
of choral ballet, in which Falstaff is badly treated by everyone,
especially by Bardolph. In {86} the hubbub Dr Caius elopes with
Bardolph disguised as Anne Page, and Fenton and Anne manage to get
Ford's consent to their marriage. Then comes the great moment of all.
All parties are reconciled; Ford invites everyone to carouse at his
house, and Sir John Falstaff leads off with the subject of the great
choral fugue that forms the finale. The words begin, "Jesting is man's
vocation," etc. Fenton takes the answer, then Dame Quickly, then
Mistress Ford. At first the orchestration is very light, but as the
rest join in it grows heavier. Mistress Page then enters with the
subject, followed by Sweet Anne in _stretto_, Pistol meanwhile starting
with the counter-subject, closely followed by Ford, with Dr Caius in
_stretto_. It would take too long to describe the ramifications of
this, as Browning says of another, "mountainous fugue," but it is one
of the most superb pieces of vocal fugal writing extant, and makes one
of the finest endings to an opera the brain of man has ever conceived.
The idea of having a great fugue in eight and ten parts, with a full
chorus and orchestra, quite independent of the solo parts, to finish a
comic opera was a stroke of genius that could only have occurred to a
supreme mind, and could only have been carried out by one of the great
musical and dramatic geniuses of the world. It is extraordinarily
successful, and its daring is gloriously vindicated. Let those lovers
of musical comedy, ragtime, and sentimental ballads who sneer at fugue,
counterpoint, form, and technique hear this, and wonder. It does not
sound very complicated or difficult, but really it is quite as complex
as the finale of Mozart's "Jupiter" Symphony, the "Cum Sancto Spiritu"
from Bach's B minor Mass, or the great fugato finale from the third act
of Wagner's _Meistersinger_. Verdi and Mozart make the numbers I have
spoken of sound simple and almost easy; Bach and Wagner sound as
difficult as they are, and all are equally difficult at bedrock.
I have written a great deal on this work, though no number of pages of
mine could do any kind of justice to {87} it; but if I have helped one
reader to a little fuller understanding of this great comic opera I
shall have "acquired grace," and, anyhow, that is something.
In 1856, at the Lyric, Paris, +Adolphe Adam+ produced his one-act comic
opera _Falstaffe_, with a libretto by MM. Saint Georges and Leunen. He
was born in Paris in 1803, and was a pupil of Boieldieu at the
Conservatoire. The music is very light and fairly melodious, but quite
unambitious, and has been described by a French musical critic, very
justly, as mediocre. There is a valse in it which was popular for a
time, and a few catchy numbers, but the critic was right--mediocre is
the word.
There is a song by +J. L. Hatton+ entitled "Falstaff's Song: Give me a
cup of sack, boy." But I cannot find the words in my edition of
Shakespeare's plays and poems. It begins:
A full, flowing cup of old sack give me, boy;
For sack clears the head, clears the heart.
I don't think the words are Shakespeare's, in spite of the printed
title-page before me. The music is in the composer's well-known "Simon
the Cellarer" style; only, unfortunately, the tune is not so good. The
words get sillier as the song continues, so that if I had been the boy
I should have given the singer prussic acid instead of the sack he so
repeatedly calls for.
{88}