"A goodly portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or, by'r Lady, inclining to threescore; and now I remember me, his name is Falstaff." ~ William Shakespeare
Yes, the character is taken from Shakespeare (Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry IV), and no, Verdi's was not the first operatic adaption. Several composers, including Salieri had seen him as an opera. As Auden commented, 'Even in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff has not and could not have found his true home because Shakespeare was only a poet. For that he was to wait nearly two hundred years till Verdi wrote his last opera. Falstaff is not the only case of a character whose true home is the world of music; others are Tristan, Isolde and Don Giovanni.'
Trivia item: yes, there was a real Sir John Falstaff!
'He was a brave soldier; served in France; was governor of Hondleur; took an important part in the battle of Agincourt, and was in all the engagements before the walls of Orleans, where the English finally were obliged to retreat before Joan of Arc. Sir John Falstaff died at the age of eighty-two years in county Nortfolk, his native shire, after numerous valiant exploits, and having occupied his old age in caring for the interest of the two universities of Oxford and Cambridge, to be foundation of which he had largely contributed. To us, however, he is known almost wholly as an enormously stout comic character.'
There's some good reading in this account of the creation of the opera - and Bryn Terfel's account of his battle with the role. This early production was one of his first tries at Falstaff.
And the opera 's plot? It's well described here. Not very PC in many ways. Following Shakespeare, it's about excess, dishonesty and drinking, also about social class and war of the sexes.
What about the music? Very Verdi, very varied. And he was approaching 80. There's an interesting commentary here about its departure from the great earlier Verdi operas. For the better, some would say.
Trailer for our production is here. Last word to the Guardian reviewer: 'The cast is almost uniformly excellent, with Bryn Terfel's performance in the title role a wonderful demonstration of the range and power of his ever widening command and equally impressive contributions from Barbara Frittoli (Alice), Roberto Frontali (Ford), Kenneth Tarver (Fenton) and Desirée Rancatore (Nannetta). But there are aspects of both Graham Vick's production and especially of Bernard Haitink's disappointingly stolid conducting that prevent this Falstaff taking off in the way that this finest grained of operatic comedies can in the right circumstances.'
Lyn, 15th Sept 2021
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