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“It is not often that a man's strength is so immense
that he can remain an athlete after bartering half of it
to old age for experience; but the thing happens occasionally,
and need not so greatly surprise us in Verdi's case," said
George Bernard Shaw. Verdi was happily living in retirement
at his farm in Sant’Agata when Boito sent him the synopsis
of a proposed libretto to be called Falstaff. Verdi’s
enthusiasm was aroused by the libretto which was based primarily
on Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. He
had finally found the comic libretto he had dreamed of all
his life. Boito’s inventions enthralled and dazzled
Verdi. The nearly eighty-year-old composer became rejuvenated
by the idea of Falstaff.
Verdi knew from experience that only a
librettist with Boito’s
intellectual range could transcend Shakespeare’s nuances
in order to transform The Merry Wives of
Windsor for the operatic medium. For Verdi, the essence
of the comic Falstaff character was to have him emerge in
rich magnificence and splendor. Only Boito, with his extraordinary
fondness for word-play and irony was capable of achieving
those results. In meeting those expectations, Boito took
many liberties with the Falstaff character. He adapted and
synthesized his underlying story scenario from both The
Merry Wives of Windsor and the Henry IV plays,
extracting the poor jokes, and turning bad ones into excellent
verse. The opera captures the delicacy and wit of Shakespearean
comedy as well as the prodigious personality of Shakespeare's
rotund antihero.
Falstaff sounds completely different
from Verdi’s
other works. Unlike all his preceding operas, there are almost
no solo arias in Falstaff,
but rather a series of short melodic motifs, which are occasionally allowed
to linger a bit longer. Before a motif has a chance to develop into a full
fledged melody, Verdi is off to something else – a new idea or a new
motif. These short and fleeting themes return with enough frequency to make
an indelible impression. Verdi truly found a completely new musical language
for this quicksilver masterpiece. The premiere of Falstaff took place
at La Scala on February 9, 1893. Inevitably, it became an immediate and huge
triumph, a national and international sensation.
Renay Conlin
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