Tonight We'll Get A Good Idea Of How Successful Putin Has Been In Doing To The EU What He Did To The U.S.

Señor Trumpanzee with Italian would-be Mussolini, Matteo Salvini

In Europe, voting for the EU Parliament ends today. But Holland and the U.K. went first-- on Thursday-- and unofficial Dutch results show a gargantuan loss for Geert Wilders, the far right hate-monger who was leading in the polls. This is how it looks right now for the the Dutch delegation (26 seats):

• Labour- 18%
• VVD (mainstream conservatives)- 14%
• Forum for Democracy (neo-fascists)- 11%
• Freedom Party (Wilders' far right Trumpist/Islamaphobic party)- 4%

Turnout was up in Holland to around 37% but North Ireland, where there are 3 seats, shows over 45% voting. Votes there won't be counted until Monday, although the rest of the U.K. should have election results tonight. Here's how the U.K.'s seats are apportioned:

• Southeast England- 10
• London- 8
• Northwest England- 8
• West Midlands- 7
• East England- 7
• Southwest England- 6
• Scotland- 6
• Yorkshire & Humber- 6
• East Midlands- 5
• Wales- 4
• Northeast England- 3
• Northern Ireland- 3

This is how the British parties participating in the election stand on Brexit:

Brexit Party- leave
UKIP- leave
Conservative Party- leave but almost as confused as Labour
Lib Dems- favors remain but wants a new Brexit vote
Labour- complete confusion though most members want a new referendum
Green Party- remain with new referendum
Change UK- new referendum

Der Spiegel published an exhaustive look at the elections: The Right-Wing Populist Plan to Destroy Europe. The German magazine's point is that dramatic exposure of the far right's catastrophic Russian bribery scandal in Austria hasn't stopped the pan-European neo-fascists from battling on towards their goal of destroying the European Union from within its own institutions. Despite Geert Wilder's setback on Thursday, the elections ending today are likely to help them move along towards their goal.

Last Saturday European fascist leaders met in Milan, summoned by the would-be Mussolini, Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini. 11 neo-Nazi parties were represented, including Marine Le Pen from France, Geert Wilders, Jörg Meuthen from the Alternative for Germany party, as well as fascists from Bulgaria, Slovakia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland and Estonia.

Together, they performed what is by now well-known work, one with some surreal features: Full of bluster, the self-proclaimed "true Europeans" campaigned for entry into a parliament they despise. And they asked the people to give them the power to hollow out a European Union that has been painstakingly built over decades. All of it to the tune of Nessun dorma, along with Puccini's Turandot, its aria ending in fierce chanting: "Vanish, oh night! Set, stars! Set, stars! At dawn I will win! I'll win! I will win!" Vincerò!





On the stage in Milan, not a word was said about the drama unfolding in Vienna, as Heinz-Christian Strache, the head of the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), stepped down from his position as vice chancellor following the leak of a video demonstrating the depth of his corruptibility-- a scandal that also threatened to take down the entire Austrian government. And yet, in Milan they all pretended that nothing had happened. Even as they all knew: Quite a lot had happened.

This time around, it's not about some low-level party official sending Hitler pictures via WhatsApp on the Führer's birthday in provincial Austria. This time it goes right to the top level of the Austrian government, casting light on the worrying state of the Austrian political scene. The videos raise fundamental questions about whether the populists are fit for power. And whether they can be entrusted with government business. And whether Strache and his protégé Johann Gudenus should be regarded as isolated cases or as symbolic figures of a fast and loose relationship between right-wing populists and donations from foreign donors, rule of law and the truth.





Most Austrians, with the exception, perhaps, of FPÖ supporters, were likely to have been deeply shocked by the disregard to the country's constitution shown in the recordings, and many Europeans were astonished by the crooked behavior displayed by the second in command of a government of an EU member state. If the scenes in the Ibiza videos had been part of a TV crime show, people probably would have dismissed them as having been exaggerated and overdone.

..."IbizaGate" feeds into the well-founded suspicions that those thumping their chests as über-patriots in their countries have little problem with conniving with foreign powers, obtaining financing from dubious donors or even being pulled like puppets on a string when it comes to policy. The Strache scandal is undoubtedly detrimental to the original narrative offered by the right-wing populists-- namely that the parties are the lone forces defending the good people against "old parties" and other corrupt elites. But as Strache has now shown, it's the right-wing populists themselves who are in fact the corrupt elite.

Strache's German counterparts from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) have recognized the dangers of such discussions, but they don't want to admit it. Meuthen, one of the party's leaders, has been in damage control mode since last Saturday, describing the Strache Video as a "singular matter" reflecting abominable behavior, but also as a domestic issue relevant only to Austria.

...The Strache circus is of course also a problem for right-wing populists outside of Austria, because the issues raised by the video are a problem for them all across Europe. For months the AfD itself has been tangled up in several party donation scandals involving Alice Weidel, the party's floor leader in German parliament, as well as its leading candidates heading into this weekend's European elections, Meuthen and Guido Reil. Weidel is under scrutiny over a dubious election campaign donation of around 130,000 euros. In Meuthen's case, he is being scrutinized over 90,000 euros from dubious sources used to finance his campaign in a state election in Baden-Württemberg. And there are questions surrounding the nearly 45,000 euros used in a state election campaign in North Rhine-Westphalia for Reil, a member of the AfD's national board.

[Note: UK neo-Nazi, Nigel Farage is in the midst of a scandal showing that he's financed by Putin and devoted to Trump.]

No less troubling is the fact that the Ibiza video once again sheds light on the close contacts many right-wing populists in Europe have with Russia, a problem for which the AfD has also been in the headlines. In April, Der Spiegel, ZDF, La Repubblica and the BBC reported on the activities and connections of Markus Frohnmaier, a member of German parliament with the AfD. A document circulated inside the Russian presidential administration at the time of the Bundestag election campaign describing the politician as potentially becoming "a deputy under absolute control" of Russia.

The BND, Germany's foreign intelligence agency, and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the country's domestic intelligence apparatus, are currently detecting a change in the Kremlin's strategy. Rather than relying solely on its own media and channels for campaigning and aiming to steer the agenda, it is now focusing much more on individuals, a small group of parliamentarians were recently told in a classified meeting. They were informed that the people selected by Moscow included somewhere between a half-dozen and a dozen members of the Bundestag. One is Markus Frohnmaier. When contacted for comment, he responded: "I do not allow myself to be used by the Russian government for its purposes and would always refuse to accept attempts of this kind. The reporting about me is nothing more than a campaign."

Senior AfD politician Alexander Gauland is also a frequent guest in Russia, but he rejects any criticism because he claims to be following the foreign policy footsteps of Bismarck, who believed in strong German-Russian relations. Marcus Pretzell, at the time a member of the AfD and current member of the European Parliament, visited the Russian-occupied Crimea as "Guest of Honor" in 2016 and thought it petty when he was later questioned about who paid for the trip.

Similar episodes can be found all across Europe. When Marine Le Pen's Front National, now known as Rassemblement National, convened a party conference in Lyon in November 2014, the guest list was similar to that of Salvini's rally in Milan and delegates from Vladimir Putin's United Russia Party also attended. That same year, Le Pen's party had received two loans from Russian banks amounting to 11 million euros to help finance its election campaigns.

Two years later, the French right-wing populists asked Moscow for another 3 million euro loan, but it is unclear whether it was ever granted. There are, though, indications that Marine Le Pen may have promised not to criticize Russia's annexation of the Crimea and to promote Moscow's interests in exchange for the money. The suspicion, which Le Pen denies, is supported by mobile text messages from a well-known and high-ranking Kremlin official, who wrote among other things: "Marine Le Pen has not disappointed our expectations." And: "We will have to thank the French in one way or another."

In Great Britain, the National Crime Agency is investigating suspicions that Brexit leader Nigel Farage received money from Russia through indirect channels. Many consider it probable that the Kremlin sought to manipulate the Brexit vote to destabilize the European Union.

There is a greater amount of urgency surrounding these questions in the aftermath of the Strache-Ibiza video. Are economic interests at stake when Matteo Salvini's Lega party repeatedly advocates an end to the EU's "useless, or even harmful" sanctions against Russia? Do the Greek far-right parties get money for their frequently expressed conviction that there is a "natural alliance" between Greeks and Russians? How does Russia's president exploit the image he enjoys as being one of the last guardians of true values among European groups of both extremes? A leader who seeks to prevent what he describes as a weakened, immoral, decadent EU from prevailing?

"There is conspiracy of all the radical right-wing nationalists everywhere, apparently with the help of the Kremlin, or of oligarchs round the Kremlin, to disrupt this union," Guy Verhofstadt, a prominent Belgian member of European Parliament, told the Times of London on Wednesday. The German newspaper Die Welt this week quoted former French President François Hollande as saying that whoever votes for populists in Europe is "giving their vote to Trump and Putin."

That may sound preposterous, but it has long since become apparent in the European Council, where European heads of state and government still establish the broad parameters of EU policy. Coalition governments that include populist parties are often more open to influence from abroad than others. Once example is Middle East policy. Countries like Hungary have begun diverging from the European stance to serve American interests. Because Hungary stood in the way, the EU was not able to condemn the Trump administration's decision to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as a diplomatic mistake in December 2017. Budapest essentially became Donald Trump's advocate in Brussels.

The unanimity requirement for important decisions in the European Council thus gives populists veto power. And their partners abroad are quick to praise them for services rendered. Twelve days ago, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was showered with praise by the U.S. president himself during a visit to the White House. Orbán, Trump said, does a "tremendous job" and is "highly respected all over Europe."

That, of course, is far from the truth. In many countries, respect for Orbán is a thing of the past, and when it comes to domestic policy and the judiciary, his government is seen as having betrayed European values. Externally, Hungary has become a gateway for all those wishing to divide the EU. And the number of these open gateways is growing: Russia and the U.S. are not alone in their desire to weaken the EU block. China has also incorporated the EU, the world's largest internal market, into its geopolitical considerations and is searching for access.

The EU isn't equipped to stand up to such adversaries. It does have a couple of instruments it can use to punish intractable member states, but it hardly ever uses them. EU countries worried about being punished in the future regularly block their deployment. The dream of outgoing European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker that the EU might one day become a global political player seem illusory.

By chance, Juncker was in Vienna this week for a visit that had long been planned. He had apparently decided that he would remain silent about the Strache scandal-- but couldn't ultimately resist. "The idea that one country is put on a silver platter so that others can help themselves," he said, "does not reflect my idea of patriotism."

Jean Asselborn, Juncker's compatriot who is the foreign minister of Luxembourg, expressed deep discomfort. "The European right wing is unified by its desire to bring the free press and the judiciary under its control wherever they have power," he says. "That is true of Hungary and Poland, and that is shown by Strache's comments in the video."

The dangers presented by populists to European unity is significant, says Asselborn. "If European citizens continue placing their trust in these people, there is a risk that we could end up landing where we were back in the 1930s," he says.

The Austrian scandal was also of interest to Angela Merkel. On the Saturday Salvini's party in Milan and the political earthquake in Vienna were taking place, the German chancellor was standing in a basketball arena in Zagreb fulminating against the populists. "Nationalism is the enemy of the European project," she said from the stage. In the press conference that had preceded her speech, she said, "We are faced with populist currents that want to destroy a values-based Europe." Apparently referring to Strache, Merkel added: "That includes putting politicians up for sale. We must decisively stand up to all of that."

But the populists are currently finding success with their assault on the political establishment. They have representatives in parliaments across the continent, and established parties in almost every country in Europe are worried about their advance. In Sweden, the xenophobic Sweden Democrats received 17.5 percent of the vote in last year's elections, a result recently matched by the True Finns, whose overt nationalism fueled their success. The Conservative People's Party of Estonia, which has dedicated itself to the defense of the Estonian ethnicity, jumped from 8.1 percent support to 17.8 percent in March elections.

The numbers show that the populists are generally still far from securing a majority on a national or European level-- Poland and Hungary notwithstanding. But in places like Italy and Austria, they are becoming more than just convenient partners for parties in need of parliamentary majorities and in France, they could become the largest party in the country. In many European nations, it has become increasingly difficult to put together stabile governments made up of moderate political parties.

The communication strategies adopted by the right-wing populists are simply far better than the rather old-fashioned methods of the established parties. It is impossible to ignore the parallels to the 1930s, when the Nazis discovered the power of film and the possibilities presented by television-- as exemplified by the broadcast of the 1936 Olympic Games. The populists and extremists of today were much quicker to understand the opportunities inherent in the digital world than their political rivals, many of whom remain stuck in analog antiquity. Populists still use traditional media outlets, but are increasingly circumventing them.

The Germans may still be playing catch-up, but in Italy, France and Austria, the populists have learned to take full advantage of what the new media world has to offer. They may like to complain that they are being treated unfairly by the "leftist media" and libeled by the "fake news," but in truth, other channels have long since become more important for them.

Matteo Salvini reaches 3.7 million people directly via Facebook, the kind of follower numbers otherwise only seen with pop stars. It helps explain why he always seems to be the center of attention. The traditional political reports seen on Italian public broadcasters or in critical newspapers merely serve to round out his brand. As strange as it might sound, Salvini is one of the largest mass-media outlets in Italy, which works to his tremendous advantage. It means that he can present himself and his worldview free from pesky critical questions.

Austria's fallen Vice Chancellor Strache has 779,000 Facebook followers in a country with a population of not even 9 million. Like Salvini, he and his team are adept at using emotion, both positive and negative. Mother's Day and children's birthdays are celebrated with pretty pictures, hearts and kisses - the idyllic world the FPÖ professes to protect. Then he posts stories about ungrateful asylum seekers, sex criminals and unwanted migrants, often with his own indignant commentary. Strache's posts aren't just read and liked, they are also shared and commented on thousands of times, increasing their value.

Marine Le Pen similarly has 1.5 million followers on Facebook. Victor Orbán has 657,000. Some might argue that these numbers are something of a counterfeit currency and that their appearance in an article such as this represent the downfall of political analysis, but it is almost impossible to overrate their value. In this day and age, for politicians and others in positions of power, large follower counts mean message control, the ability to disseminate one's own messages without the inconvenience of a filter.

The more people follow a politician on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Instagram, the less dependent that politician is on the reporting of independent media and the fewer critical questions from journalists he or she needs to answer. Of course, it's not all hearts and kisses on their social media accounts-- they are badgered and taunted, and not all of their followers are fans. But anger and controversy serve to jack up the click numbers-- and in the new currency of digital attention, clicks are good, no matter where they come from.

It has become something of a parallel reality. Manfred Weber, the lead candidate in the European elections for the center-right European People's Party, doesn't even have 60,000 followers on Facebook. Weber presumably prefers devoting himself to projects he believes are more important than improving his internet presence. But it is doubtful that today's politicians can afford the luxury of such an approach. What has been true for the media for the last several years is now true for politicians as well: If you're not present in the digital world, you soon won't be present at all. Low name recognition translates to diminished election prospects, not to mention a weakened ability to attract younger voters or those voters who tend to stay away from politics.

Clever politicians like Salvini or Strache are perfectly suited to an era in which voters prefer watching videos than reading essays. But the current wave of populism aimed at the European Union and its Brussels headquarters is more than just a game being played by self-obsessed demagogues online media. The current form of populism, whose actors pose as the uncorrupted in a sea of corruption, has many roots: real problems and unrealistic expectations; broad fears of eroding financial security; feelings of being left behind. That is where populism derives its strength. And the anger that comes with it is perhaps best studied in the Eastern European countries that joined the EU a decade and a half ago.

These European elections are falling on a European anniversary that is being largely ignored. Fifteen years ago, the EU incorporated an entire group of Eastern European countries, enabling the peaceful unification of the continent-- an historical godsend that led to a Nobel Peace Prize for Brussels. Today, however, this same EU has a terrible-- catastrophic even-- image within the right-wing governments in these countries.

Bannon with a bunch of European neo-Nazis in Budapest

In many parts of Eastern Europe, the EU is seen as a conspiracy of overpaid, traitorous bureaucrats. Like the communists before them, it is said, the EU technocrats are intent on reeducating the Eastern Europeans. They see the EU as trying to tame nation, tradition and religion. The women are to have fewer children, gays and lesbians are to be allowed to get married and adopt, and Muslims from Africa and the Middle East are to be permitted to settle wherever they want. And the blame, in this view, lies entirely with Brussels.

That is the message delivered by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the nationalist-conservative Law and Justice party in Poland, and by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz Party. The governments in Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia also include similar figures. EU-skeptics have become established everywhere in the region.

And yet, contradictions abound. No halfway influential party in Eastern Europe wants to leave the EU. Despite the success of the Kaczynskis and the Orbáns, the EU enjoys tremendous support from the Baltics to the Balkans, including 90 percent support in Poland. The governments clearly have no mandate to escort their countries out of the EU. Indeed, surveys indicate that people there have more trust in the EU than in their own elites.

There is an economic explanation. Between 2004 and 2020, 356 billion euros will have flowed into the 10 accession countries from the European Structural and Investment Funds alone. Struggling state economies have transformed into regions of significant growth. The EU brought in investors, financed road construction, built universities and developed data networks. City halls and hospitals were renovated with EU money. And Brussels also helped reform the public administration and the judiciary - and strengthen civil society.

The EU triggered a wave of modernization in Eastern Europe that took three decades longer to unfold in the west. Prosperity, of course, is not equally divided. Statistically, however, the standard of living has risen significantly in all the accession countries. Eastern European societies have also become freer and more mobile in the last 20 years. There is no "objective" reason to be opposed to the EU in Warsaw, Budapest or Ljubljana.

There are, however, subjective, less concrete reasons. Karel Schwarzenberg, who spent several years serving as Czech foreign minister and is a passionate supporter of the EU, argues that people know what the EU has done for them, but don't feel at home in it. He says that all too often, Eastern Europeans have been delivered the message that they are second-class members of the bloc-- poorer and still backwards, and that they should become real Europeans, real democrats before they speak up. A comparison can be drawn to the feeling former East Germans often have in reunified Germany.

It is a feeling not just experienced by politicians from Eastern Europe sent to Brussels, but by millions of Poles, Hungarians, Czechs and Slovaks in their day-to-day lives. Around 20 million people have at least temporarily left their Eastern European homelands to work in the West. Instead of getting to know the continent as student travelers or vacationers as many in the West were privileged enough to do, an entire generation of Eastern Europeans have experienced Western Europe as cleaning ladies, itinerant farmworkers and manual laborers. As domestic help for the wealthy of the West.

The resulting feelings of inferiority have fueled right-wing populists. The decades in which Eastern Europeans wanted nothing more than to emulate the West are over and a phenomenon has developed that the Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev describes by saying: "Imitation engenders resentment." That resentment, he says, is directed at the erstwhile role models. It is stoked by the populists, who transform feelings of inferiority into aggression directed against the Brussels elite and the "servants" of the EU in their own capitals.

In places like Warsaw and Budapest, people have begun to feel like they have already experienced the best of what the EU has to offer. Now everything coming from Brussels is a threat to their own culture and lifestyle: environmental requirements, gay rights, migrant quotas, all kinds of duties and obligations, the arduous negotiations that are the hallmark of democracy.

The 2015 refugee crisis plunged half of Europe into temporary chaos, but more than anything, it gouged out a chasm between West and East. The demand primarily from Western European countries - or, to be more precise, from Germany - that all countries must help when it comes to distributing the refugees triggered the release of dissatisfactions that had been developing for quite some time. People in the east felt like they had survived the collapse of communism, lost jobs and got jobs, changed themselves, changed everything, and still hadn't caught up to the West. And now they were supposed to look after people even weaker than them?

In Brussels, such a point of view is seen as petulance and leads to a loss of influence. Exaggerated nationalism and unilateralism aren't welcome in the EU. They are a dead end. Poland and Hungary, in particular, sideline themselves in negotiations, frequently avoid complicated issues and tend to pound testily on the table rather than patiently pursuing their own interests and trying to listen to and understand the interests of others.

This leads to a dangerous cycle: countries driven by nationalism achieve less and less in Brussels, which leads to increasing alienation from the EU back home. Blame for a lack of success is pinned on anonymous powers in Brussels, the technocrats, the immovable and corrupt elites, thus paving the way for the empty yet pithy slogans of the populists.

The disruptive potential of the right-wing fringe in European Parliament has long been limited to mere spluttering expostulations from the plenary floor-- and their occasional misuse of EU money for their own benefit. Instead of using parliament for serious policy work, they saw it as a stage from which they could send messages back home-- a stage adeptly used by Farage, Salvini, Le Pen and others of their ilk. For some time, they were content to mock Europe's legislative body, but that is now changing. Le Pen has undergone perhaps the most profound metamorphosis, and for her opponents, that should be rather unsettling.

For a long time, her focus was on "Frexit," on leading France out of the common currency. She saw anything European as evil and abhorrent. These days, though, she ends her campaign speeches with the battle cry: "Long live the real Europe! Long live France!"

The chant "vive l'Europe" is, despite the qualification represented by the word "real," a 180-degree reversal. Until this year, Le Pen had consistently campaigned on the promise of freeing her country from the yoke of the common currency. It is a promise that, most recently, failed to generate its desired result in 2017, when she performed so badly in a now legendary televised debate on EU issues with the ultimate election winner Emmanuel Macron that it seemed like her political career may have come to an end.

In the parliamentary elections that followed, her Front National party didn't even win enough votes to form its own parliamentary group, a failure that Le Pen interpreted as the result of widespread fear in France of leaving the eurozone. As a result, since fall 2017, she has been an ardent supporter of the "real Europe," a message that proved divisive in her party. But she was determined. She no longer wanted to frighten people away with "Frexit"-- and now she appears to really believe that an alliance with her new friends in Italy, Poland, Austria, Germany and elsewhere represents a plausible path to power for the right-wing movement.

That's not particularly realistic. Thus far, every attempt at a broad, right-wing alliance in Europe has failed miserably, with the Front National itself having been part of many of those failures. The new concept for a European Alliance for People and Nations is also unlikely to go anywhere and conflict seems unavoidable.

The AfD in Germany and Lega in Italy are roughly as far away from each other on economic and finance policy as the liberals from the FDP and the far-left Left Party are in Germany. There are also deep, seemingly unbridgeable ideological rifts between Le Pen's party and the PiS in Poland and Fidesz in Hungary when it comes to society, family and women. As such, the planned right-wing "super fraction" is nothing more than a typical populist mélange of braggadocio and canniness. Likely the most important motivation for cooperation is the prospect of forming a large fraction that would automatically become more visible in European Parliament. It would also be handed more responsibilities, receive more speaking time and, most importantly, get more money.

Sunday Classics: How Massenet and Puccini make Manon and des Grieux matter to us

MANON [sad and resigned]: Come now, Manon, no more chimeras,
where your mind goes while dreaming!
Leave these ephemeral desires
at the door of your convent!
Come now, Manon, no more desires, no more chimeras!

Beverly Sills (s), Manon Lescaut; New Philharmonia Orchestra, Julius Rudel, cond. ABC-DG, recorded July 1970

by Ken

This is the 16-year-old Manon of Massenet's Act I, arrived in Amiens by coach where she has been met -- and promptly abandoned -- by her cousin Lescaut for dumping off to a convent. (We're going to hear a fuller version of this scene later.)

A few weeks ago I began poking around The Story of the Chévalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut (the title of the novel by the Abbé Prévost which formed the basis for all the subsequent adaptations) as it was shaped by Jules Massenet for his operatic Manon. Then in Friday's preview we switched over to Puccini's later rendering, which he distinguished by calling it Manon Lescaut.

The last thing I'm interested in is seeing which opera is "better." They seem to me wonderfully complementary, a classic case of two great storytellers who tell the same story, which comes out somewhat different because of their different sensibilities, emphases, and audiences. And I think looking at both operas helps us focus on what makes the story of these doomed lovers so enduringly fascinating.

Let's start by going back to the beginnings of both operas. We already heard the brief Prelude to Massenet's opera, but let's hear it again, first in a performance we already heard, then in one we didn't.

MASSENET: Manon: Prelude

New Philharmonia Orchestra, Julius Rudel, cond. ABC-DG, recorded July 1970

Orchestra of the Capitole de Toulouse, Michel Plasson, cond. EMI, recorded July 1982

Massenet's curtain rises on a "genre" scene at the inn in Amiens where Manon and des Grieux are going to meet. Puccini begins his opera with a similar sort of scene, focused on the male students at the inn flirting with the young ladies.

NOW FOR PUCCINI'S OPENING --

Read more »

Sunday Classics: Storms that set three great operatic scenes in motion (aka: Musical storms, part 3)

Presumably you can tell from the umbrellas that there's a storm a-brewing -- well, actually, a-happening. Act III of Kátya Kabanová at St. Petersburg's Mikhailovsky Theater, December 2010.


Vienna Philharmonic, Charles Mackerras, cond. Decca, recorded December 1976

Prague National Theater Orchestra, Jaroslav Krombholc, cond. Supraphon, recorded 1959 [audio link]
[Note: Suddenly I'm having trouble with this clip. It seems to play OK onsite via the audio link. Or not -- sigh, don't ask me.]

"Storms are punishment, sent to us
to make us realize the power of the Almighty!"

-- the merchant Dikoj, in Act III of Janáček's Kátya Kabanová

by Ken

No, we're not going to get to Kátya Kabanová until next week. As I've had to keep explaining, most recently in Friday night's preview, the musical materials for our series on musical storms keep pushing back and insisting on being handled their way. So next week we're going to finish up -- I'm pretty sure! (I think) -- with two storms that are crucial parts of the musico-dramatic structure of their operas, and tonight we'll take our time focusing on three storms that open, and set the musical and dramatic wheels in motion for, three great operatic scenes.

I've had to be ruthless here, because there's so much to say about -- and of course hear in -- these scenes that we could easily spend weeks on each of them. So I'm going to try to rule out all digressions from the three short excerpts, with two exceptions:

(1) I've reproduced the fullest possible version of the stage directions I could find, at least in the two cases where there are extensive stage directions, not because I think stage directors and designers should be obligated to faithfully reproduce them (I don't, not at all), but because they seem to me to teem with information and indications about what mattered to the composers and librettists -- one and the same person in the case of Wagner, of course -- and how they wanted to stimulate and steer their audiences' perceptions.

I have to say that as long and intimately as I've consorted with these scenes, there was a fair amount of detail here that I've never taken in. And certainly much more detail than audiences could be expected to absorb in the few minutes it takes for these act-openers to whiz by. Which is a reminder of how fastidiously musico-dramatic craftsmen at the highest levels imagine their creations. I'd like to think that this is one opportunity to give these musical scene-setters the rightful attention they can't get from theatrical spectators.

(2) This is kind of a corollary to the above: For all three of our scene-setting storms we're going to hear the music that most closely preceded them. As a matter of fact, in the case of Puccini's La Bohème, I stumbled across a large fact I had somehow never known: that the composer and his librettists, Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, apparently originally imagined an opera in five rather than four acts, with a middle act that Puccini never set.

The commentator from whom I learned this points out some factual references in what we know as Acts III and IV that refer back to facts from the never-set act, things that have never seemed to me to require explanation, but doesn't bother to note the most obvious reason the composer chose to jettison it: that the transformation from Act II to Act III as they were composed is one of the great dramatic coups in the theatrical literature. I think we'll get some sense of that transformation by butting the end of Act II up against the start of Act III.

(Okay, I've cheated. There will be another digression at the end, left over from work I had already done by the time I called a halt.)


LET'S GET ON WITH OUR SCENE-SETTING STORMS -- CLICK HERE

SUNDAY CLASSICS' MUSICAL STORMS

Preview: Tonight's musical selections should give you a good idea of Sunday's subject (January 13)
The thunderstorm movement from Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony and Otello's "Esultate" from Verdi's Otello
Stormy weather, part 1 (January 15)
Verdi's Otello, Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, and Berlioz's Les Troyens, plus Lena Horne singing "Stormy Weather"
Preview: Given the resources at his disposal, Vivaldi's musical storms may be the most remarkable of all (January 27)
The three storm movements from Vivaldi's Four Seasons
With the full symphony orchestra you can create a heckuva storm (aka: Musical storms, part 2) (January 29)
Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony (again), Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, Grofé's Grand Canyon Suite, Johann Strauss II's Amid Thunder and Lightning polka, Richard Strauss's Alpine Symphony, Grieg's Peer Gynt incidental music, Britten's Peter Grimes, and Rossini's Barber of Seville
Preview: En route to more of our musical storms, we encounter perhaps the most eerily wonderful music I know (February 3)
The Preludes to Acts I and II of Wagner's Siegfried
Storms that set three great operatic scenes in motion (aka: Musical storms, part 3) (February 5)
The openings of Wagner's Die Walküre Act I and Siegfried Act III and of Act III of Puccini's La Bohème
Preview: En route to our final operatic storms, we hear two famous tenor tunes sung by a very famous tenor (February 24)
"La donna è mobile," the Quartet, and the Storm Scene from Act III of Rigoletto
Musical storms, part 4: We come to our raging storms from Janáček's Kátya Kabanová and Verdi's Rigoletto (February 26)
The storms from Act III of both operas, with a close-up look at how Verdi created the Rigoletto one -- plus the whole of Act III

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Sunday Classics: Puccini makes a scene [cont'd]: "Gianni Schicchi" harks back to Verdi's "Falstaff"

The jacket of the original U.K. issue of EMI's 1958 recording of Gianni Schicchi, from which we hear a chunk below, featured this watercolor impression of the title character by none other than the performance's Schicchi, baritone Tito Gobbi.

by Ken

In last night's preview we sneaked ahead to the end of Gianni Schicchi, on the promise that today we were going to fill in some of the blanks. (And don't forget that way back when we saw a video clip of the first 10 minutes of the 2007 Met Gianni Schicchi.) Plus, we're also down to make the connection between Puccini's comic masterpiece and Verdi's great final opera, Falstaff.

For the story of Gianni Schicchi, Puccini and his Trittico librettist Giovacchino Forzano descended all the way to the Eighth Circle of Dante's Inferno. Wikipedia sketches what they found in the sources:

Literary sources

A man named Gianni Schicchi is only briefly referred to in Dante's Inferno Canto XXX:

E l'Aretin che rimase, tremando,
mi disse: 'Quel folletto è Gianni Schicchi,
e va rabbioso altrui così conciando.'

(And he of Arezzo, pausing, trembling,
told me, "That madman is Gianni Schicchi,
who gnaws the other in his raving.")

The text states that Schicchi

per guadagnar la donna de la torma,
falsificare in sè Buoso Donati,
testando e dando al testamento norma

(to gain for himself the fairest of the herd,
impersonated Buoso Donati,
making a will in proper form.)

That grim vignette is not the real source of the opera's action. A work entitled "Commentary on the Divine Comedy by an Anonymous Florentine of the 14th Century," first published in 1866, elucidating Dante's terse references, is the actual source to the familiar plot setup. In this, Buoso has wished to make a will, but was put off with words by his son, Simone. Once it is too late, Simone fears that Buoso may have made a will before his illness, unfavorable to Simone. Simone calls on Schicchi for counsel, and Schicchi coins the idea of the impersonation. Simone promises Schicchi he will be well rewarded, but Schicchi takes no chances, "leaving" a hefty sum to himself (though most goes to Simone), including the mule, and makes the bequests conditional on Simone's distributing the estate within fifteen days, otherwise everything shall go to charity.

Dante was no doubt somewhat biased in his description, having married into the Donati family himself, marrying Gemma Donati in 1295, five years after the death of his adored Beatrice.

This is still pretty far removed from the version of the story in the opera, but it at least gave Puccini and Forzano enough to begin fleshing out the predatory Donati clan, the way Schicchi is involved, and the ruse he concocts and pulls off.

Note in particular that there's no hint in the sources of the great young love of the Donati nephew Rinuccio and Schicchi's adored daughter Lauretta, which has been at the heart of our approach to Gianni Schicchi and in particular to its most famous excerpt, Lauretta's aria "O mio babbino caro."

Our starting point has been my insistence that ripped out of its proper setting, while the aria remains, obviously, an extremely pretty and touching thing, it tends to become a wallow in cheap sentimentality -- you know, the sort of thing that Puccini is widely accused of having made a career of. In context it's actually more beautiful, and more moving, and also side-splittingly funny.

Last week we listened first to the aria itself, and then I staked out my position that at a bare minimum it needs to be framed, first, by the enraged Schicchi's refusal to do anything to help the wretched snobs of the Donati clan to deal with the will of their late Buoso which disinherits them, to which Lauretta is responding, and at the end by darling Daddy's infinitely grudging response. That, to refresh your memory, would go something like this:

Gianni Schicchi: "A pro di quella gente?" . . . "O mio babbino caro"

GIANNI SCHICCHI: For the sake of those people?
Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!

LAURETTA: O my dear little daddy,
I like him. He's lovely, he's lovely.
I want to go to the Porta Rossa
to buy a wedding ring!
Yes, yes, I want to go there!
And if I were to love him in vain,
I would go to the Ponte Vecchio,
but to throw myself in the Arno!
I'm pining and I'm tormented!
O God, I'd like to die!
Daddy, have pity, have pity!
Daddy, have pity, have pity!

GIANNI SCHICCHI [grudgingly]: Give me the will.

Fernando Corena (bs), Gianni Schicchi; Renata Tebaldi (s), Lauretta; Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Lamberto Gardelli, cond. Decca, recorded July 1962 By the way, even though we got to hear more of Fernando Corena's Schicchi than we did of poor Gabriel Bacquier's in the 1981 Met video clip that opened last Sunday's post, in which Renata Scotto sang "O mio babbino caro," I expect you'd like to hear more of what was a wonderful role assumption. Not to worry, we're going to hear more, though not from the Decca recording. In our original discussion of this scene, I noted that when Schicchi, enraged by his treatment at the hands of the Donatis, and in particular the formidable matriarch Zita, is prepared to hustle Lauretta the hell out of the house, Rinuccio makes a hilarious last-ditch appeal to his would-be father-in-law, going so far as to address him as "Signor Giovanni." We hear this at 1:18 of our next excerpt, in which we start at [b] in the text below, Schicchi's expostulation to Zita, "Brava, La Vecchia." Note that when he address her as "old woman," he's not being entirely rudely offensive; Zita is actually known, albeit not entirely flatteringly, as "La Vecchia." Note the young people's expression of despair ("Addio, speranza bella," "Farewell, beautiful hope"), which we hear again after Schicchi grudgingly takes possession of the will -- and twice after studying it declares that there's nothing to be done. Gianni Schicchi: [a] "Quale aspetto sgomento e desolato!" . . . [b] "Brava, la vecchia, brava" . . . [c] "Signor Giovanni, rimanete un momento" . . . "A pro di quella gente?" . . . "O mio babbino caro" . . . "Datemi il testamento"

[a] [GIANNI SCHICCHI enters, followed by LAURETTA.] SCHICCHI: How desolate and dismayed they look! Buoso must have gotten better. RINUCCIO: Lauretta! LAURETTA: Rino! RINUCCIO: My love! LAURETTA: Why so pale? RINUCCIO: Alas, my uncle . . . LAURETTA: Well, tell me . . . RINUCCIO: My love, my love, how much sorrow! LAURETTA: How much sorrow! [SCHICCHI advances slowly toward ZITA, who turns her back to him; advancing, he sees the candelabras around the bed.] SCHICCHI: Ah! Gone? [To himself.] Why all the tears? They act better than a strolling player. [Aloud, with false intonation.] Ah! I understand the sorrow of such a loss. My soul commiserates with you. GHERARDO: Eh! The loss has been really big! SCHICCHI [expressing stupid polite sentiments]: Eh! There are things . . .Bah! What can you do? In this world you lose one thing . . . you find another . . . if Buoso is lost, isn't there the inheritance? ZITA: Sure, for the monks! SCHICCHI: Ah, disinherited! ZITA: Disinherited! Yes, yes, disinherited! And that's why I'm telling you, take your little daughter and be off with you! I will not give my daughter to someone who's dowry-less. RINUCCIO: O aunt! I love her, I love her! LAURETTA: Daddy! Daddy! I want him! SCHICCHI: Little girl, a bit of pride! ZITA: I don't give a hang! [b] SCHICCHI: Brava, old woman! Brava! For the dowry you'll sacrifice my daughter and your nephew! Brava, old woman! Brava! [All simultaneously:] Old hag! Skinflint! Contemptible! Grasping! Mean! LAURETTA: Rinuccio, don't leave me! Ah, you swore it to me under the moon at Fiesole, you swore it when you kissed me! No, don't leave me! No, don't leave me, Rinuccio, no! RINUCCIO: My Lauretta, remember, you swore love to me. and that evening Fiesole seemed to be all a flower. Remember, remember, love, love. ZITA: He even insults me! Without a dowry I won't, I won't give my nephew, I won't give my nephew! Rinuccio, come, let them go! You would be inviting disaster! Come, come. LAURETTA and RINUCCIO: Farewell, beautiful hope, every last ray has died. We won't be able to wed on May Day. SCHICCHI: Ah, come, Lauretta, come, dry your eyes, your new relations would be misers! A bit of pride! Ah, come, come! ZITA: But come, Rinuccio, come, but come, come, let them go. Go, get out of here! [Everyone continues in this vain, with RINUCCIO and LAURETTA occasionally crying, "Love!," until RINUCCIO appeals directly to SCHICCHI.] [c] RINUCCIO: Master Giovanni, remain a moment! [To ZITA] Instead of screaming, give him the will. [To SCHICCHI] Try to save us! You can't fail to have an important idea, a discovery, a remedy, a way out, an expedient! SCHICCHI: For the sake of those people? Nothing! Nothing! Nothing! LAURETTA: O my dear little daddy, I like him. He's lovely, he's lovely. I want to go to the Porta Rossa to buy a wedding ring! Yes, yes, I want to go there! And if I were to love him in vain, I would go to the Ponte Vecchio, but to throw myself in the Arno! I'm pining and I'm tormented! O God, I'd like to die! Daddy, have pity, have pity! Daddy, have pity, have pity! SCHICCHI [grudgingly]: Give me the will. [RINUCCIO gives the will to SCHICCHI; the latter paces up and down, absorbed in reading. The relatives follow him with their eyes, then unconsciously wind up walking behind him. SCHICCHI stops suddenly.] SCHICCHI: Nothing to be done! LAURETTA and RINUCCIO: Farewell, beautiful hope, sweet mirage. We won't be able to wed on May Day. [SCHICCHI returns to pacing, reading the will more carefully.] SCHICCHI [stopping suddenly]: Nothing to be done! LAURETTA and RINUCCIO: Farewell, beautiful hope! Every ray has died. SCHICCHI: But . . . LAURETTA and RINUCCIO: Perhaps we will be able to wed on May Day. [The relatives circle around SCHICCHI, watching him with great anxiety. SCHICCHI, motionless in the middle of the scene, gestures sparingly, staring in front of him. Little by little his face breaks out in a smile, triumphant.] THE RELATIVES: Well? SCHICCHI: Laurettina, go out on the terrace; take some little crumbs for the little bird. [Stopping RINUCCIO, who wants to follow LAURETTA.] Alone. [As soon as LAURETTA has left, SCHICCHI turns to the relatives.] No one knows that Buoso has breathed his last?

from [b]: José van Dam (bs-b), Gianni Schicchi; Roberto Alagna (t), Rinuccio; Felicity Palmer (ms), Zita; Angela Gheorghiu (s), Lauretta; et al.; London Symphony Orchestra, Antonio Pappano, cond. EMI, recorded August 1997 Now we're going to back up just a bit, to Schicchi's entrance (i.e., point [a]). This is the very point we got to last night when we heard Rinuccio making his plea on behalf of Schicchi, for whom it turns out Rinuccio has sent, thinking him the only person who might be able to help them with the fatal will. While I'm far from an unalloyed fan of Tito Gobbi, even though the voice -- always short at the top -- is short at the bottom for a role that seems closer to bass than to baritone territory, this is one of my favorite of his recordings. from [a]: Tito Gobbi (b), Gianni Schicchi; Victoria de los Angeles (s), Lauretta; Carlo del Monte (t), Rinuccio; Anna Maria Canali (ms), Zita; et al.; Rome Opera Orchestra, Gabriele Santini, cond. EMI, recorded July 1958 Of course we've left out one factor that Puccini surely anticipated: applause. In an actual performance, inevitably "O mio babbino caro" is going to stop the show for a while, thereby giving Schicchi an extra beat to stew in his predicament, wanting so badly to get himself and Lauretta the hell out of this accursed house but unable to bear her pain, even as he knows how she's manipulating him. Here are two wonderful live performances. from [a]: Italo Tajo (bs), Gianni Schicchi; Giuseppe di Stefano (t), Rinuccio; Cloë Elmo (c), Zita; Licia Albanese (s), Lauretta; et al.; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Giuseppe Antonicelli, cond. Live performance, March 12, 1949 from [a]: Fernando Corena (bs), Gianni Schicchi; Charles Anthony (t), Rinuccio; Belén Amparan (c), Zita; Laurel Hurley (s), Lauretta; et al.; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Dimitri Mitropoulos, cond. Live performance, Feb. 8, 1958

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HELLO, YOUNG LOVERS: A LOOK BACK

AT VERDI'S NANNETTA AND FENTON

It's a story that doesn't sound any less clichéd or any less miraculous however often it's told, how Giuseppe Verdi, who had already considered himself retired when he was pressed into composing Aida, sick to death of the deadly work-for-hire conditions of performance in even the world's greatest opera houses (what was the point of trying to set higher composing standards if there was no place to perform work of serious artistic ambition?), was lured by the younger critic, composer (most notably of Mefistofele), and librettist (most notably, if pseudonymously, of Ponchielli's La Gioconda), Arrigo Boito, into composing, in secrecy and exclusively for his own satisfaction, first Otelllo and then, with his 80th birthday on the horizon, Falstaff. It sounds like yet another dreary cliché that after all those decades of work, of resolutely bleak personal and philosophical outlook, in Falstaff Verdi undertook his first comedy since his generally disastrous second opera, Un Giorno di regno. The composer would claim that it was because no one had asked him to do so, and anyone who wishes is free to buy that explanation. And maybe it really doesn't need explaining why no one thought to suggest a comic subject to the creator of all those operatic masterpieces that reflect such a bleak, even hopeless, view of the human condition. Nevertheless, in his collaboration with Boito the idea not only came up but was carried through with miraculous brilliance. Falstaff is an agglomeration of miracles, and the one that I find most miraculous is that at such an advanced age Verdi both chose and was able and chose to invest such love and hope in the piece's children. Of course, if you're going to entertain any hope for the future of the human race, where else can you lodge it? Still, there is a point in the opera at which the focus subtly switches from the ridiculousness of Sir John Falstaff's amorous pursuits to the determination of a mother, Mistress Alice Ford, to override her husband's plan for their only child and see her married to the young man who makes her feel hopeful for the future. From the outset, though, there is what I can only call magic in the music of the always-joined young Nannetta Ford and her beloved Fenton, and it seems to me inconceivable that in the creation of the young lovers in Gianni Schicchi Puccini didn't have their story playing in his head. The nominal business of the second scene of Falstaff is the playing out of the letters we saw Sir John writing in the opening scene to Mistress Ford and her neighbor Mistress Meg Page, attempting to seduce these merry wives of Windsor, with a view toward raising some much-needed cash from the adventure. In this astonishingly concise scene we get the reactions to Falstaff's letters, first alternately but eventually simultaneously, of the women and the men (Falstaff's plot having been blown by his much-aggrieved followers, Bardolfo and Pistola). Threading through their doings, however, are the young people's frantic efforts to steal moments of intimacy. VERDI: Falstaff: Act I, Scene 2, "Psst, psst, Nannetta"

FENTON [softly, behind the bushes]: Psst, psst, Nannetta. NANNETTA [putting her finger to her lips in a sign for silence]: Shhh. FENTON: Come here. NANNETTA [looking around, with caution]: It's quiet. What do you want? FENTON: Two kisses. NANNETTA: Quickly. FENTON: Quickly. [They kiss rapidly.] NANNETTA: Lips like fire! FENTON: Lips like flowers! NANNETTA: That know the jolly game of love. FENTON: That speak nonsense, that reveal pearls, beautiful to look at, beautiful to kiss. [Tries to embrace her.] Gossamer lips! NANNETTA [defending herself and looking around]: Naughty hand! FENTON: Murderous eyelashes! Thieving pupils! I love you. NANNETTA: Imprudent. [FENTON goes to kiss her again.] No. FENTON: Yes. Two kisses. NANNETTA [freeing herself]: Enough. FENTON: I want you so much! NANNETTA: People are coming. [They separate from each other as the women return.] FENTON [singing as he goes out] A kissed mouth never lacks for fortune. NANNETTA [continuing FENTON's song as she joins the other women]: Instead it's renewed, as the moon is.

Mirella Freni (s), Nannetta; Alfredo Kraus (t); RCA Italiana Opera Orchestra, Georg Solti, cond. RCA/Decca, recorded 1963 Maureen O'Flynn (s), Nannetta; Ramón Vargas (t), Fenton; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Riccardo Muti, cond. Sony, recorded live, June 21-30, 1993 A bit later in the scene, "Torno all' assalta" ("I return to the assault")

FENTON: I return to the assault. NANNETTA: I return to the defense. FENTON: Parry! [He tries to kiss her. She covers her face with a hand, which he kisses and would like to kiss again but NANNETTA lifts it as high in the air as she can, and FENTON is unable to reach it with his lips.] NANNETTA: The target is way high. Love is an agile tournament. Its court rules that the weaker wins over the stronger. FENTON: I'm armed; I see you. I await you at the pass. NANNETTA: The lips are the bow. FENTON: And the kiss is the arrow. Beware, the fatal shaft is already flying from my lips into your hair. [He kisses her hair.] NANNETTA [winding her hair around his neck while he kisses it]: Here you are conquered. FENTON: I plead for my life! NANNETTA: I'm wounded, but you're conquered. FENTON: Mercy! Mercy! Let's make peace, and then -- NANNETTA: And then? FENTON: If you will, let's start over again! NANNETTA: The best games don't last long. Enough. FENTON: My love. NANNETTA [running out]: People are coming. Goodby! FENTON: [going away, singing]: A kissed mouth never lacks for fortune. NANNETTA [answering from afar]: Instead it's renewed, as the moon is.

Mirella Freni (s), Nannetta; Alfredo Kraus (t); RCA Italiana Opera Orchestra, Georg Solti, cond. RCA/Decca, recorded 1963 Maureen O'Flynn (s), Nannetta; Ramón Vargas (t), Fenton; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Riccardo Muti, cond. Sony, recorded live, June 21-30, 1993 The lovers finally get solo opportunities in the midnight Windsor Park scene, where the merry wives enlist most of the town, in disguise, to get back at Falstaff. Mistress Ford has disguised Nannetta as the Queen of the Fairies, against whom Sir John has been warned especially. After the magical (sorry, but the word keeps coming up in connection with Falstaff) orchestral introduction, Fenton has his aria. Act III, Scene 2, introduction and aria (Fenton), "Dal labbro il canto estasiata vola" ("From my lips my ecstatic song flies")

[Herne's Oak stands at the center. The banks of a ditch show in the background. The trees and shrubbery are in bloom. It is night. [The far-off cries of nightwatchmen are heard. Slowly the park is lit by the rays of the moon. FENTON enters.] FENTON: From my lips my ecstatic song flies in the silent night and goes far and finally meets other human lips that answer it with their word. Then the note, which is no longer alone, trembles with joy in a secret accord, and bathing the pre-dawn air in love with the other voice makes its way back to its source. There the sound resumes, but its care attempts always to unite what separates it. Thus I kissed the longed-for lips! A kissed mouth never lacks for fortune. NANNETTA [offstage, distant and coming nearer]: Instead it's renewed, as the moon is. FENTON [running to where her voice was heard]: But the song dies in the mouth that touches it. [FENTON sees NANNETTA, who enters, and embraces her. NANNETTA is dressed as the Queen of the Fairies. With her is ALICE, not masked, carrying a robe over her arm and a mask in her hand.] ALICE: No, sir, you put on this robe.

Alfredo Kraus (t), Fenton; Mirella Freni (s), Nannetta; Ilva Ligabue (s), Alice Ford; RCA Italiana Opera Orchestra, Georg Solti, cond. RCA/Decca, recorded 1963 Ramón Vargas (t), Fenton; Maureen O'Flynn (s), Nannetta; Daniela Dessì (s), Alice Ford; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Riccardo Muti, cond. Sony, recorded live, June 21-30, 1993 Later in that scene, "Ninfe! Elfi! Silfi!" . . . aria (Nannetta), "Sul fil d'un soffio etesio" ("Nymphs! Elves! Sylphs!" . . . "On the breath of a seasonal breeze") Preparations for the double game, the tormenting of Falstaff and Alice's plan for Nannetta, proceed. Falstaff arrives, in a state of advanced alarm. Finally it's showtime. Nannetta and her cohort of fairies are first heard offstage.

NANNETTA, as the Queen of the Fairies, organizes her party of nymphs, elves, sylphs, dryads, and sirens offstage and ushers them onstage, where Falstaff is cowering before Herne's Oak, having been warned that anyone who sees the fairies will die. When the large cast of characters is in place, NANNETTA sings. NANNETTA: On the breath of a seasonal breeze, run about, you agile specters, among the branches a blue glow of moonlight rises. Dance! And let your fairy steps be measured by a fairy tune, which joins your magic dancing to a magic song. THE FAIRIES: The wood is asleep and breathes out perfume and shadow; it shines in the black night air like a green cavern deep in the sea. NANNETTA: We wander under the moon, choosing flower to flower. Each blossom in its heart carries its fortune. With lilies and violets we write secret names; from our fairy hands blossom words. Words that gleam with pure silver and gold, charms and spells. Fairies have flowers for figures. THE FAIRIES: Let's move one by one under the moon's halo toward the dark shadow of the Black Huntsman.

Mirella Freni (s), Nannetta; et al.; RCA Italiana Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Georg Solti, cond. RCA/Decca, recorded 1963 Maureen O'Flynn (s), Nannetta; et al.; Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Riccardo Muti, cond. Sony, recorded live, June 21-30, 1993 SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS The current list is here.

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