Falstaff

Sébastien Herbecq, Thomas Van Deursen

Reading time: 7 min.

Read the full synopsis of Falstaff and listen to some of the work’s musical highlights, selected and illuminated by conductor Alain Altinoglu.

ACTE I

Part 1 ‘Falstaff... Olà!’

Alain Altinoglu : The score of Falstaff begins with a whirlwind of astonishing virtuosity. This was already the case with Otello, which opened with an explosion, but it was rare at the time not to begin an opera with a long overture, or at least a prelude (as in La traviata). Here, we have an immediate musical storm (a bit like Puccini would do somewhat later in La bohème). From the beginning, the tone is set: Verdi stands out through his total mastery of counterpoint, his dazzling speed, his contrasts, and the theatricality of the interactions between the characters. Starting the piece in this way is truly electrifying. Verdi was 79 when the opera premiered, and still he managed to try out something new and silence his critics by putting forward a brand new way of composing. His writing contains a great deal of freshness and playfulness. There are about ten quotations from his own works, sometimes deliberately concealed in the orchestration. There are musical jokes reserved for the orchestra musicians, like passages where the cellos have to play these very high notes that are technically difficult but not in fact audible to the audience, which is a source of fun in the pit, etc.

In an inn, Dr Caius accuses Sir John Falstaff and his two companions, Bardolfo and Pistola, of playing various pranks on him the night before. While Falstaff admits his responsibility in these events, Bardolfo and Pistola deny that they took advantage of the doctor’s drunken stupor to rob him. As he storms out, Dr Caius vows that, if he ever gets drunk again, ‘it will be with honest, sober, pious, well-bred people’. Once calm has returned, Falstaff reveals his plan to fill his empty coffers. He is going to send love letters to two wealthy and married bourgeoises, Mrs Alice Ford and Mrs Meg Page, in the hope of seducing them both. He believes that the ladies love his big belly and instructs Bardolfo and Pistola to deliver the letters. Both messengers refuse the assignment, however, claiming that their honour is at stake. Falstaff bursts into a rage and entrusts the letters to his page. He chases Bardolfo and Pistola away, and muses on the meaning of ‘honour’. ‘What is it then? A word. What is in that word? Air.’

Part 2

At the Ford house, Alice and her daughter Nannetta are visited by Meg and Mrs Quickly. Alice and Meg have each received a love letter from Falstaff. Apart from their names and addresses, the letters are identical. The four women decide to teach Falstaff a lesson. Bardolfo, Pistola and Dr Caius warn Mr Ford that Falstaff is planning to seduce his wife Alice. The four women return, together with Fenton, a young man who is close to the Ford family. Fenton is in love with Nannetta and believes that those feelings are mutual. So there are two groups that want to teach Falstaff a lesson. The women agree that Mrs Quickly will deceive Sir John into thinking that Alice and Meg are head over heels in love with him and want to meet him. They promise to trap him if he shows up for the romantic rendezvous. Among the men, Ford decides to visit Falstaff under a false identity. He vows to expose him. While the older characters gloat over their plotting, Nannetta and Fenton seize the opportunity to share a secret kiss.

An overly intellectual opera?

Alain Altinoglu : Despite its exceptional musical qualities, Falstaff has never been as popular among the general audience as Rigoletto, Il trovatore, Aida and other works by Verdi. This is in part due to its ‘refusal’ to pile on the grand arias with very simple melodies. However, it is not just an ‘intellectual’ work, as it is sometimes claimed. It is very funny and very rich. I think that, in general, knowing the plot of an opera in advance really helps you to appreciate it. When several soloists sing at the same time, when choruses are added and so on, not everything can be taken in through the libretto. This is even more the case here because everything happens so quickly. It is almost a parodic allusion by the composer to his own concertate, which can even be found in Otello.

ACT II

Part 1

Falstaff receives a visit from Mrs Quickly, who tells him that Alice is in love with him and wishes to welcome him at her home. He can only come, however, when her husband is out, namely between two and three o’clock daily. Mrs Quickly then reports, with a less explicit message, that Meg has also accepted his invitation. Falstaff is looking forward to his date with Alice when an unknown man, a certain Maestro Fontana (Ford in disguise), asks to meet him. Fontana confides in Falstaff that he is in love with Alice Ford but that she refuses to answer his love letters. The visitor asks Falstaff, in exchange for a handsome reward, to seduce Alice and test her marital fidelity. Falstaff accepts the proposal keenly and even mentions in passing that he has already taken steps in that direction. ‘In half an hour she will be in my arms’, he announces triumphantly, before changing his clothes for this tête-à-tête. Consumed by jealousy, Ford worries about the future of his marriage and then leaves with the smartly dressed Falstaff.

‘E sogno o realtà?’

Alain Altinoglu : Ford’s magnificent aria is one of the opera’s best known and features in the concert repertoire of many baritones. This passage demonstrates Shakespeare and Verdi’s ability, at moments of complete confusion, to pause for a moment on a character and explore their deepest feelings. It is always Wagner who his credited with having a monopoly on the unconscious in opera. But in the orchestration of the slightest instrumental interlude between each line of this aria, Verdi expresses Ford’s state of mind and offers us underlying psychological clues with great subtlety. And the ending of this passage is truly brilliant because it finishes on a high note. Indeed, while in a traditional opera seria the composer would write a conclusion inviting the audience to applaud, here Verdi makes a masterly transition with Falstaff’s entrance: the music suddenly shifts from a very dramatic tone to something lively and almost naive. It is all wrapped up with an exchange of polite remarks between the two men, as they repeat ‘After you’ and ‘No, after you’. It’s almost a little power game, in fact. If you look at major international summits, political leaders behave in the same way, with the person entering second marking their higher status in relation to the person who entered first.

Part 2

At the Ford house, the four women are getting ready to play a trick on Falstaff. Nannetta, however, is markedly silent: she has just learned that her father wants to marry her off to Dr Caius. Falstaff then makes his entrance, ready to conquer Alice. While he loses himself in trivial gallantries, the conversation is interrupted by Mrs Quickly and Meg. In a state of frenzy, they warn Alice that her furious husband is on his way to unmask his wife’s lover. The three women hide Falstaff behind a screen. Ford appears at the head of a group of men and instructs them to turn his house upside down to catch his wife’s lover. The women take advantage of the chaos to push Falstaff into a laundry basket, before ordering their servants to throw its contents out the window and straight into the river. When Ford sees Falstaff floundering in the water, he sees through the ruse and laughs along with them.

ACT III

Part 1

A melancholy Falstaff muses on his fate as a man and his recent trials and tribulations. More than ever, he feels excluded from the world around him. Then Mrs Quickly arrives with a new message from Alice. She deeply regrets the recent turn of events and wants to make amends. She invites Falstaff to a new, night-time rendezvous. Sir John doesn’t need to be asked twice. Neither does he suspect, however, that this is another trick by Alice, her husband, their daughter Nannetta, Meg and Mrs Quickly. They all plan to appear at the rendezvous disguised as elves and fairies and to give Falstaff a good scare. When assigning the roles, Alice gives her daughter that of the Fairy Queen. Ford passes this valuable information on to Dr Caius, to whom he wants to give his daughter’s hand in marriage that same evening, using the disguises. Mrs Quickly overhears their conversation and decides to thwart their plan.

Part 2

After Fenton has sung a charming serenade for Nannetta, Alice and Mrs Quickly dress the young man in a costume identical to that of Dr Caius. The clock strikes midnight: Falstaff appears, followed shortly by Alice, to whom he addresses words of passion. Suddenly, a cry is heard, and elves, fairies and other mysterious creatures appear. Alice runs off while Falstaff tries to hide, especially in order to avoid the gaze of the Fairy Queen (Nannetta in disguise).

‘Sul fil d'un soffio etesio’

Alain Altinoglu : How can we not mention Nannetta’s absolutely sublime aria? With the appearance of fairy-like creatures around her, it brings to mind the atmosphere of another Shakespeare play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and its musical variations. It is a suspended moment of immense beauty, written with such fluidity and lightness as to convey the innocence of youth. Here again, this aria features in the repertoires of many sopranos, because it has always been very popular with audiences.

Then the spectacle really begins, as they all vie with one another to plague, scare and chasten Falstaff. After a while, Falstaff recognizes Bardolfo among his attackers and realizes what is happening. Ford suggests ending the evening with the marriage of the Fairy Queen. However, he doesn’t know that Fenton has taken Dr Caius’s place. After the wedding blessing, the lovers drop their masks and Ford realizes that he too has been duped. Falstaff has the last word. With an infectious roar of laughter, he exclaims: ‘The whole world is a farce.’

Finale: ‘Tutto nel mondo è burla’

Alain Altinoglu : Of course, as always, the best is saved for last. And what an ending! Verdi concludes Falstaff with a display of virtuosity. He wrote a fugue showing complete contrapuntal mastery. Counterpoint is the art of composing by superimposing melodic lines. When we learn counterpoint at school, when we learn how to write a fugue, we naturally study Bach and the baroque composers, but we should also look closely at this finale. The 79-year-old Verdi shows us how it’s done by superimposing the voices of the ten soloists, for whom this passage is extremely difficult, with those of the choruses. Fortunately, the orchestra doubles the singers to help them, because they have to count different tempos between each of their interventions, they have to hold the notes and not get lost, and all this without having the score before their eyes. We started with an explosion, and with this fugue, we end the opera with a jubilant vocal and orchestral display of fireworks.