DownWithTyranny!: Sunday Classics: Verdi's Falstaff holds court in the Garter Inn

"Reverenza!": Mistress Quickly approaches Falstaff in the Garter Inn.

The interior of the Garter Inn.. FALSTAFF as always sprawled in his big chair in its usual place, drinking his Xeres. BARDOLFO and PISTOLA near the back near the door at left.

BARDOLFO and PISTOLA [beating their breasts in acts of repentance]: We're penitent, and contrite.
FALSTAFF: Man returns to his vices,
like the cat to fat.
BARDOLFO and PISTOLA: And we return to your service.
BARDOLFO: Master, out there there's a woman
who asks to be admitted to your presence.
FALSTAFF: Let her enter.
[BARDOLFO goes out and returns with MISTRESS QUICKLY.]
QUICKLY [bowing deeply to FALSTAFF]: Your reverence!
FALSTAFF: Good day, good woman.
QUICKLY: Your reverence!

Giuseppe Nessi (t), Bardolfo; Cristiano Dalamangas (bs), Pistola; Giuseppe Taddei (b), Sir John Falstaff; Amalia Pini (ms), Mistress Quickly; RAI Turin Symphony Orchestra, Mario Rossi, cond. Cetra, broadcast performance, 1949

Renato Ercolani (t), Bardolfo; Nicola Zaccaria (bs), Pistola; Tito Gobbi (b), Sir John Falstaff; Fedora Barbieri (ms), Mistress Quickly; Philharmonia Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan, cond. EMI, recorded 1956

by Ken

As promised in Friday night's preview, when we heard Master Ford's deliciously awesome monologue from Act II, Scene 1 of Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, with a magical libretto by Arrigo Boito (who had also written the utterly different libretto for Verdi's Otello), today we're going to work our way through the scene.

The opera, you may recall, is constructed of three acts with two scenes each, all roughly the same length. The first scene of each act is set in the Garter Inn in Windsor, the roost of the aging Sir John Falstaff, who's dealing with a severe case of impecuniousness, and in the opening scene hatched a nutty scheme, based on his estimate of his supposedly awesome seductive powers, to seduce one or both of two merry wives of Windsor, Mistress Alice Ford and/or her next-door neighbor, Mistress Meg Page. He has sent them comically poetical love letters, identical except for the names, and unbeknownst to him this caper has become known to, well, pretty much everyone in the two, and rival revenge plots have been hatched.

So here we are back at the Garter, and what we've already heard above is the arrival, in full fawning mode, of the elderly Mistress Quickly, to launch the merry wives' plot.

I HAVE TO SLIP IN A QUICK PERFORMANCE NOTE

The Karajan performance is quicker, which in itself would be fine; I like the breadth of the Rossi-Cetra performance, but quicker can be fine too. But note that there's hardly any defining rhythmic character to Karajan's phrasing of an opening that is supremely notable for its rhythmic definition -- this is another of those "legendary" recordings whose legendariness escapes me. "Borderline incompetent" is how I might describe it. But then there are a surprising number of Falstaff recordings, many of them conducted by celebrated maestri, that seem to me similarly to miss most of the point(s) of the opera. In a moment we're going to hear this bit of the scene again, and I hope you'll hear the difference.

(I might add that appreciation for Tito Gobbi's vocally pressed and frequently vaguely cartoonish Falstaff seems to me overdone too. But I do still derive enjoyment from his performance.)

NOW LET'S MOVE ON TO THE QUICKLY-FALSTAFF SCENE

But we'll start by going back to the beginning of the scene.

Falstaff: Act II, Scene 1, Opening and Quickly-Falstaff scene

The interior of the Garter Inn.. FALSTAFF as always sprawled in his big chair in its usual place, drinking his Xeres. BARDOLFO and PISTOLA near the back near the door at left.

BARDOLFO and PISTOLA [beating their breasts in acts of repentance]: We're penitent, and contrite.
FALSTAFF: Man returns to his vices,
like the cat to fat.
BARDOLFO and PISTOLA: And we return to your service.
BARDOLFO: Master, out there there's a woman
who asks to be admitted to your presence.
FALSTAFF: Let her enter.
[BARDOLFO goes out and returns with MISTRESS QUICKLY.]
QUICKLY [bowing deeply to FALSTAFF]: Your reverence!
FALSTAFF: Good day, good woman.
QUICKLY: Your reverence!
If it please Your Grace,
I would like to say a few words to you in secret.
FALSTAFF: I grant you a hearing.
[To BARDOLFO and PISTOLA] Pst, leave.
[They leave.]
QUICKLY: Your reverence! My lady Alice Ford . . .
FALSTAFF: Well?
QUICKLY: Alas! Poor woman!
You are a great seducer!
FALSTAFF: I know. Continue.
QUICKLY: Alice is in great agitation of love for you.
She tells you that she has your letter, that she thanks you,
and that her husband always goes out from two until three.
FALSTAFF: From two until three.
QUICKLY: Your Grace at that hour can freely
go to the dwelling of the beautiful Alice. Poor woman!
Her anguish is cruel! She has a jealous husband!
FALSTAFF: From two until three.
Tell her that I await that hour impatiently.
I will not fail in my duty.
QUICKLY: Well said.
But there's another message for Your Grace.
FALSTAFF: Speak.
QUICKLY: The beautiful Meg (an angel whom to see
is to love) also greets you most amorously;
she says that her husband is rather rarely absent.
Poor woman! A lily of candor and of faith!
You bewitch them all!
FALSTAFF: There's no witchcraft,
just a personal fascination of mine.
Tell me, does the one know about the other?
QUICKLY: Oh no! Woman is a born deceiver.
Do not fear.
FALSTAFF [searching in his purse]:
Let me reward you.
QUICKLY: Who sows grace reaps love.
FALSTAFF [extracting a coin]: Take this, lady Mercury.
Greet the two ladies.
QUICKLY: I bow to you.
[She leaves.]

Piero de Palma (t), Bardolfo; Giovanni Foiani (bs), Pistola; Geraint Evans (b), Sir John Falstaff; Giulietta Simionato (ms), Mistress Quickly; RCA Italiana Orchestra, Georg Solti, cond. RCA-Decca, recorded 1963

Florindo Andreolli (t), Bardolfo; Enrico Campi (b), Pistola; Fernando Corena (bs), Sir John Falstaff; Fedora Barbieri (ms), Mistress Quickly; Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Carlo Maria Giulini. Live performance from the Holland Festival, the Hague, June 20, 1963

"ALICE IS MINE! VA, VECCHIO JOHN"

Falstaff is completely taken in. And now we discover that he not only refers to himself in the third person but sings himself pep songs!

Falstaff: Act II, Scene 1, Falstaff, "Saluta le due dame" . . . "Alice è mia!" . . . "Va, vecchio John"

FALSTAFF [extracting a coin]: Take this, lady Mercury.
Greet the two ladies.
QUICKLY: I bow to you.
[She leaves.]
FALSTAFF: Alice is mine!
Go, old John, go, go on your way.
This old flesh of yours can still squeeze out
some sweetness for you
All the women in revolt together
risk damnation for me!
Good body of Sir John, which I nourish
and indulge, I thank you.

Giuseppe Taddei (b), Sir John Falstaff; Amalia Pini (ms), Mistress Quickly; RAI Turin Symphony Orchestra, Mario Rossi, cond. Cetra, broadcast performance, 1949

Tito Gobbi (b), Sir John Falstaff; Fedora Barbieri (ms), Mistress Quickly; Philharmonia Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan, cond. EMI, recorded 1956

ENTER "MASTER BROOK"

Now things get tricky. In the previous scene, after the arrival of Falstaff's identical-except-for-the-names letters of wooing to Mistresses Ford and Page, the women have hatched one revenge plot -- the one we've just seen Mistress Quickly putting in motion -- but Master Ford has hatched one of his own. Bardolofo and Pistola, who have made their abject return to the service of Sir John, are aware only of the men's plot.

Falstaff: Act II, Scene 1, Ford-Falstaff scene

FALSTAFF: Alice is mine!
Go, old John, go, go on your way.
This old flesh of yours can still squeeze out
some sweetness for you
All the women in revolt together
risk damnation for me!
Good body of Sir John, which I nourish
and indulge, I thank you.
BARDOLFO [entering]: Sir, there's a certain Master Fontana [Brook] outside
who desires to be acquainted with you. He offers
a demijohn of Cyprus for Your Lordship's breakfast.
FALSTAFF: His name is Fontana [Brook]?
BARDOLFO: Yes.
FALSTAFF: Let the brook
be made welcome that overflows such liquor!
Bid him come in!
[BARDOLFO goes out.]
Go, old John, on your way.
[FORD, in disguise, enters from the left, preceded by BARDOLFO and followed by PISTOLA. FORD is carrying a small satchel in his hand.]
FORD [coming forward]: Sir John, may heaven protect you.
FALSTAFF: And protect you also, sir.
FORD : I am indeed most indiscreet, and ask
your pardon for coming here without ceremony
and without providing a larger introduction.
FALSTAFF: You are welcome.
FORD : In me you see a man who has a goodly abundance
of the comforts of life, a man who spends and squanders
as it pleases him to indulge a whim.
FALSTAFF: Dear Master Fontana!
I wish to make your fuller acquaintance.
FORD : Dear Sir John, I desire to speak to you in confidence.
BARDOLFO [to PISTOLA]: Watch!
PISTOLA [to BARDOLFO]: Hush!
BARDOLFO: Look, I'll wager he'll walk straight into the trap.
PISTOLA: Ford will snare him.
BARDOLFO and PISTOLA: Hush!
FALSTAFF [to BARDOLFO and PISTOLA]:
What are you doing there?
[BARDOLFO and PISTOLA leave.]
[To FORD] I'm listening.
FORD : Sir John, a well-known popular proverb
emboldens me: It is said that gold
opens every door, that gold is a talisman,
and that gold conquers all
FALSTAFF: Gold is a good captain
that marches ahead.
FORD : Well then, I have a bag of money here that
weighs heavily on me. Sir John, if you will help me carry it.
FALSTAFF: With great pleasure. But I don't know,
sir, by what merit of mine.
FORD : I will tell you.
There is in Windsor a lady, beautiful and very charming.
Her name is Alice; she's the wife of a certain Ford.
FALSTAFF: I'm listening to you.
FORD : I love her, but she doesn't love me.
I write; she doesn't reply. I look at her;
she doesn't see me. I seek her; she hides.
I've wasted fortunes, lavished gift upon gift,
tremblingly devised fleeting opportunities.
Alas, all in vain! I remained frustrated, disregarded,
dry-mouthed, singing a madrigal.
FALSTAFF: "Love, love that never gives us respite
until our life is over, is like the shadow . . ."
FORD : ". . . which if you flee . . ."
FALSTAFF: ". . . pursues . . ."
FORD : ". . . And if you pursue . . ."
FALSTAFF: ". . . flees."
FORD and FALSTAFF: "Love."
FORD : And this madrigal I have learned at great cost.
FALSTAFF: This is the fatal destiny of the unhappy lover.
FORD : "Love, love that never gives us respite . . ."
FALSTAFF: Has she never given promise of satisfaction?
FORD : No.
FALSTAFF: Then why do you unfold this to me?
FORD : I'll tell you.
You are a gentleman, gallant, quick-witted, and eloquent;
you are a warrior, a man of the world.
FALSTAFF: Oh!
FORD : I do not flatter you, and there is a bag of money:
spend it! spend it! Yes, spend and dispose
of my whole fortune! Be rich and happy!
But in exchange, I ask you to win Alice!
FALSTAFF: Strange injunction!
FORD : I will explain: that cruel beauty
has always lived in a great reputation for chastity.
Her irksome virtue has dazzled my eyes:
the impregnable beauty said, "Beware of touching me."
But if you storm her, then I too can hope:
one slip leads to another, and then . . .
What say you to it?
FALSTAFF: First of all, sir, without ado I accept
the satchel. Then -- my word as a knight,
here's my hand on it! -- I will see your desires satisfied.
[Firmly clasping FORD's hand]
You will possess the wife of Ford!
FORD : Thank you!
FALSTAFF: I am already far advanced --
there's no reason to keep it from you --
in half an hour she'll be in my arms.
FORD : Who?
FALSTAFF: Alice. She has just sent a . . .
confidante to tell me that her blockhead of a husband
is always out from two until three.
FORD : From two until three.
Do you know him?
FALSTAFF: The devil take him to hell
with his ancestor Menelaus!
That blockhead, that blockhead!
You'll see, I'll cuckold him neatly! If he hinders me,
I'll rain a whirlwind of blows on his horns!
Master Ford is an ox, an ox! I'll fool him for you, you'll see!
But it's late. Wait for me here. I must make myself handsome.
[He takes the satchel of money and leaves.]

Geraint Evans (b), Sir John Falstaff; Piero de Palma (t), Bardolfo; Robert Merrill (b), Ford; Giovanni Foiani (bs), Pistola; RCA Italiana Orchestra, Georg Solti, cond. RCA-Decca, recorded 1963

Fernando Corena (bs), Sir John Falstaff; Florindo Andreolli (t), Bardolfo; Renato Capecchi (b), Ford; Enrico Campi (b), Pistola; Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Carlo Maria Giulini. Live performance from the Holland Festival, the Hague, June 20, 1963

MASTER FONTANA, ER FORD, FLIPS OUT

We already heard Ford's great monologue in Friday night's preview, as sung by Robert Merrill and (in German) Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. We're going to hear that stupendous Merrill performance again, this time letting it run to the end of the scene, as Falstaff rejoins Ford and the pair do a little Alphonse-and-Gaston routine trying to get out of the Garter Inn.

This also finishes up the 1963 Solti performance of the scene. This is still my favorite Falstaff recording, and against most of the competition the margin isn't even close. I'm sobered to realize that the recording is now 50 years old, but it still sounds fresher to me than any of the other recordings, not to mention a whole hell of a lot better performed.

Then we'll let Renato Capecchi and Fernando Corena finish up their performance, and finally we'll hear, well, another performance, whose inclusion doesn't constitute endorsement.

Falstaff: Act II, Scene 1, Ford's monologue and end of scene

FORD: Is it a dream? or reality?
Two enormous horns
are growing from my head.
Is it a dream? Master Ford!
Master Ford! Are you sleeping?
Wake up! Look lively!
Your wife is going to the bad
and wrecking your honor,
your house, and your bed!
The time is fixed,
the trick fullly planned;
you're cheated and swindled!
And yet they'll say that
a jealous husband is a madman!
Already names of the most infamous kind
are being whispered around me;
scorn is murmured.
O marriage: Hell!
Woman: demon!
Let blockheads have faith in my wife!
I'd trust my beer to a German,
or my best horse to a thieving Dutchman,
or my bottle of spirits to a Turk,
but not my wife to herself.
O ugly fate!
That hideous word turns in my heart:
Horns! Beast! Goat! Twisted cuckold!
Ah, the horns! the horns!
But you won't escape me! no!
filthy, evil, damned epicurean!
First I'll get them together
and then I'll grab them.
I'll explode!
I'll explode.
I'll avenge the insult!
Let it be praised forever
from the bottom of my heart: jealousy!
FALSTAFF [reentering, wearing a new doublet and carrying a cane]: Here I am. I'm ready.
Will you walk a little of the way with me?
FORD : I'll see you on your way
FALSTAFF: You first.
FORD : You first.
FALSTAFF: No, I'm in my home. Go ahead!
FORD : I beg you . . .
FALSTAFF: It's late. My appointment presses.
FORD : Don't stand on ceremony.
FALSTAFF: Go ahead!
FORD : I beg you!
FALSTAFF:
FORD : Well then . . .
FALSTAFF and FORD : Let's pass together!
[FALSTAFF takes FORD's arm under his; they leave arm in arm.

Robert Merrill (b), Ford; Geraint Evans (b), Sir John Falstaff; RCA Italiana Orchestra, Georg Solti, cond. RCA-Decca, recorded 1963

Renato Capecchi (b), Ford; Fernando Corena (bs), Sir John Falstaff; Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Carlo Maria Giulini. Live performance from the Holland Festival, the Hague, June 20, 1963

Thomas Hampson (b), Ford; Bryn Terfel (b), Sir John Falstaff; Berlin Philharmonic, Claudio Abbado, cond. DG, recorded April 2001

BEFORE WE GO ON, LET'S GO BACK A BIT . . .

Let's go back to Falstaff's "Va, vecchio John, or rather "Brav, alter Hans" as it comes out here. This is the performance from which I extracted Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's German-language performance of Ford's monologue Friday night.

Falstaff: Act II, Scene 1, from Falstaff "Va, vecchio John"

[in German] Josef Metternich (b), Sir John Falstaff; unidentified Bardolfo; Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (b), Ford; RIAS Symphony Orchestra (Berlin), Ferenc Fricsay, cond. Live performance, 1952

NOW WE'RE GOING TO HEAR THE WHOLE SCENE

I don't know whether I just didn't find occasion to use any of its parts earlier or I made a conscious decision to save our first performance for hearing in toto. It was Leonard Bernstein's first opera recording, and I believe his first encounter with Vienna (he explained that it was the combination of the opportunity to perform the opera at the Staatsoper and make the recording that cinched the deal for him), certainly a fateful event, though from the frequent quick tempos you'll hear that this is still the "young" Bernstein.

Already, though, I think we can hear Lenny beginning to evolve into his "European master" phase, by comparing the scene with the broadcast from his Met debut performances of Falstaff just a year or two earlier. And then we hear a performance I've loved for ages. It took place the day after I was born, so no, I wasn't listening to the broadcast the day it took place. For the record, Leonard Warren and Fritz Reiner long harbored hopes of making a commercial recording of Falstaff, but first one and then the other died, and in the end that project became the Solti-RCA recording (which was claimed by Decca, when the RCA-Decca partnership dissolved. RCA was able to hold onto the also-Solti-conducted Rigoletto with Robert Merrill made the same summer. Decca got the better of that deal.)

I should note that I'm sorry not to have found a place for the 1950 Toscanini broadcast performance of Falstaff issued by RCA. I like it a lot, but it just didn't fit anywhere here.

Murray Dickie (t), Bardolfo; Erich Kunz (b), Pistola: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (b), Sir John Falstaff; Regina Resnik (ms), Mistress Quickly; Rolando Panerai (b), Ford; Vienna Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded 1966

Andrea Velis (t), Bardolfo; Norman Scott (bs), Pistola; Anselmo Colzani (b), Sir John Falstaff; Regina Resnik (ms), Mistress Quickly; Mario Sereni (b), Ford; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein, cond. Live performance, Mar. 21, 1964

Alessio de Paolis (t), Bardolfo; Lorenzo Alvary (bs), Pistola; Leonard Warren (b), Sir John Falstaff; Cloë Elmo (ms), Mistress Quickly; Giuseppe Valdengo (b), Ford; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, cond. Live performance, Feb. 26, 1949