Falstaff from Shakespeare to Verdi

“Falstaff from Shakespeare to Verdi” Barry Pegg Pine Mountain Music Festival 1st Presbyterian Church, Kingsford Thursday, Thursday, May 18th, 2000 Portage Lake United Church, Houghton Wednesday, May 24 , 2000 OVERVIEW. This will take about about 75 minutes minutes -- the the 2 video excerpts are at the end, so try to hold on on till then. If you have heard any of Carl Grapentine’s intoductory lectures to PMMF operas, you  won’t need me to tell you to hear his on Falstaff. If you haven’t, let me thank you for turning out to hear a different person who knows more about Shakespearekespeare than about Verdi, and point out that for full appreciation you should also go to hear Carl, someone who knows much much more about Verdi than I do and is a most fascinating and entertaining lecturer. [show Falstaff ] in popular culture there are very few ‘people of  size’ that we look up to: Santa Claus, Winston Churchill, Bacchus the god of wine (as in Fantasia -- the old one), the god in some chinese restaurants, and a few women, such as Sairey Gamp, the drunken, umbrella-toting midwife in Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit, and the Two Fat Ladies of the TV cooking series of the same name. Unfortunately, fat people are rather more likely to be villains, like Sydney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon or Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars and, as I argue, Shakespeare’s (though (though not Verdi’s) Falstaff. Falstaff. The villainous fat characters seem to have two things in common; (1) their love life is not emphasized, (2) they are disreputable, disreputable, acquisitive, and hedonistically hedonistically concerned with their own appetites, and (3) they have a tendency to be devoted to drink. SHAKESPEARE’S SHAKESPEARE’S FALSTAFF. Getting from Shakespeare’s Shakespeare’s Falstaff  Falstaff  to Verdi’s Falstaff can be quite an adventure. We must of course start  with Shakespeare’s Falstaff, and that means looking at what what he inherited from the the theater before before his time. Morality plays -- the late medieval open-air touring theater preceding Shakespeare, featuring good and evil characters with abstract names like Good Deeds, Truth

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(good) , vs. New-Guise, Nowadays & Naught (wicked) fighting for influence over Mankind or Everyman on his journey through life. The most popular character was the most obstreperous evil character, the “Vice.” In one such play, The Castle of Perseverance, a special collection is taken up before the audience may experience “his abhominable presens”; on his entrance, he is bedecked with fireworks, and roars “I come, with my leggys under me!” That character seems to be what the patrons patrons were waiting to see. In Shakespeare’s very  much more sophisticated sophisticate d dramas, Falstaff and Iago in Othello are 2 descendants of this character (both, incidentally, in Shakespeare plays on which Verdi Verdi based operas). Falstaff has has all the vice and venality venality of  the old vice character, and thus is not, just as Iago is not, seen in a comic context, context, at least not in the the history plays. In accordance accordance with the tradition of Shakespeare’s stage for lowlifes, he speaks prose. In Shakespeare’s history play Henry the Fourth, Part One, he takes on the generalized abstract evil significance of an old morality play  character, and is contrasted with the ideal warrior kingship of Prince Hal, the future Henry V. You might say that instead of being a knight supporting and serving the body politic, he ony represents the body  individual, with all its selfish appetites shown as a direct threat to the state -- that it why it is such a disgustingly disgustingly huge body. But Shakespeare being a great dramatist, we see Falstaff not only as a menace to society but also as an amiable rogue. Let’s recount his activities in the Henry IV plays, parts of which make their way into Verdi’s opera, to show how he seems to have no redeeming features at all. In general, Falstaff represents the opposite of upright and moral behavior -- in fact he is, at various times, (1) a highwayman and a leader-astray leader-astray of Prince Henry, Henry IV’s son -- what we would now call a mugger (1HIV, 2.1., Gadshill and aftermath in 2.4.). The Prince, Prince, sowing his wild oats, only joins in the highway robbery bcause he wants to make Falstaff. look a fool  by stealing the loot from him. (2) in time of war, a fraudulent recruiting officer, in fact a traitor; he commits one of the most heinous of unpatriotic crimes -- he takes  bribes to let his able military military recriuits recriuits go, thus endangering endangering lives lives in the cause in which he is an officer (1HIV, 4.2). •(2HIV, 3.2) Again F. lets recruits buy themselves themselves off  (3) a coward on the field of battle: •(1HIV, 5.1.129-141) honour speech: Falstaff is anticipating the  battle of Shrewsbury, Shrewsbury, in which it is expected that Hotspur Hotspur and

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Douglass will refuse terms and fight. Falstaff represents the opposite of upright and moral behavior as he gives his reasons for evading danger as much as possible: Honor pricks [“spurs”] me on. Yea, but how if honor prick me off [“checks me off as a casualty”] when I come on? How then? Can honor set a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honor hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is honor? A word. What is in that word honor? What is that honor? Air — a trim [“fine”] reckoning! Who hath it? He that died a [on]  Wednesday.  Wednesday. Doth he feel it? it? No. Doth he hear hear it? No. ‘Tis insensible insensible then? then? Yea, to the dead. dead. But will it not live  with the living? No. Why? Detraction Detraction [“slander”] [“slander”] will not suffer it. Therefore I’ll none of it. Honor is a mere scutcheon [“epitaph”] -- and so ends my catechism.” Unbelievable things for a knight of the realm to say! It is significant that this speech make its way into Verdi’s Falstaff -- but with the subversion turned into a comic rebutal of  Bardolf & Pistol’s refusal to take the old con-man’s love-letters to  Alice Ford & Meg Page. (4) a pathetic leech on women (or at any rate Mrs. Quickly) who are fond of him •(2HIV, 2.1.) Q tries to get get F. arrested for money money he owes her. He mollifies her and borrows more -- leeching off women, precursor of  Shakespearekespeare Shakespearekespeare 's Merry Wives of Windsor. and of course his “suit” to the 2 women of Windsor is not a lovesuit at all, but a con-game to get control over their husbands’  wealth. (5) a liar and impostor, of course. •(1HIV, 5.4.) Hal kills Hotspur. Douglas fights Falstaff; Falstaff  feigns death. Falstaff sees dead Hotspur and wounds him again hoping to to get the credit. credit. Hal allows allows him to to get away with it -for now. •(2HIV, 4.3) Battle of Gaultree Gaultree Forest. Forest. Falstaff hides till till rebel army  has dispersed. When Lancaster asks him “where have you been all this while?” (2HIV, 4.3. 29), Falstaff replies with a prolific spate of bluster, exaggeration, and outright lies: “I never knew   yet but rebuke rebuke and and check was the reward reward of valor. . . . I have speeded hither with the very extremest inch of possibility, I have foundered ninescore and odd posts [fresh horses ridden on

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 without the rider rider taking a break]. And And here, travel-tainted travel-tainted as as I am, have, in my pure and immaculate valor, taken Sir John Colevile of the Dale, a most furious knight and valorous enemy” [who in fact surrendered surrendered without without a fight)]. This speech does NOT make it into Verdi’s Falstaff. To sum up this decadence: Falstaff represents the irresponsible life that Prince Henry must grow out of, which he does in the famous rejection scene, where the newly-crowned King Henry spurns F and orders him banished: •(2HIV, 5.5). At the end, when the theme of of the play is confirmed, Prince Hal, just crowned Henry V, affirms his political and religious leadership -- the values of the play -- and rejects Falstaff’s cowardice and selfindulgence. Hal spurns Falstaff’s overfamiliar cry of  “God save thee, my sweet boy! . . . My King! King! My Jove! Jove! I speak to thee, thee, my heart!”  with: “I know thee not, not, old man. Fall to thy prayers. prayers. . . . Leave gormandizing. gormandizing. Know the grave grave doth gape For thee thrice wider than for other men.” (2HIV 5.5. 4658).  All this rejection! rejection! Such is the baggage baggage that Falstaff Falstaff brings to Merry Wives and to Verdi and his librettist Arrigo Boito. So what is there that this evil, Vice-descended Vice-descended character character can bring to a frothy comedy which promises but then thwarts suburban infidelity? Why is it that we like Falstaff? Falstaff? Falstaff is lovable not only   because the benevolent, benevolent, life-hungry aspect aspect of his character character is thrown into relief in Merry Wives of Windsor, when his obligations to king and country are absent, and when damage to the fabric of domestic  values is his “only” “only” crime, so he presents an energetic love of life. He’s also lovable because of his language. His hunger for life is usually  expressed in extravagant language full of the material specifics of  everyday life (most of them them needing footnotes footnotes now). For example, the extravagant, vigorous, life-loving language that Shakespeare gives him can be seen as he relishes the hot sherry with which he dilutes the river-water he has swallowed after being hidden in a laundrybasket laundrybasket  when the jealous husband returns unexpecte unexpectedly, dly, and (as planned by  the women) tipped into the Thames: (this speech, from Merry Wives

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of Windsor with 2 other chunks from the history plays, does get into the opera): “A good sherris sack hath a twofold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain, dries me there all the foolish and dull and crude vapors which environ it, makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable delectable shapes — which, delivered over to the voice, the tongue, which is is the birth, becomes becomes excellent excellent wit. The second property of your excellent sherris is the warming of the  blood, which, which, before cold cold and settled, settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice. But the sherris warms it and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extreme. extreme. It illumineth the face, face, which as a beacon beacon gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm. And then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puffed up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage — and this valor comes of sherris.” (2HIV, 4.3.102-124) (Discuss use of word “pusillanimity,” human body/kingdom analogy   whose meaning Falstaff reverses reverses from patriotism patriotism to to cowardice, and which does NOT make it into the opera) In HV his death is reported. Nobody knows for certain whether Shakespeare revived him for Merry Wives of Windsor after having Mrs. Quickly report his death in HV, or whether he wrote Merry   Wives of Windsor Windsor before before HV. There is an 18th-cent 18th-cent (i.e. late and therefore unreliable) tradition that Queen Elizabeh I requested a play  on “Sir John in Love” (incidentally (incidentally the title of the English composer Benjamin Britten’s operatic version); perhaps she wanted to see what other social bonds he could attack, especially bourgeois social bonds -the sophisticates of Elizabeth’s court were quite ready to be amused by  the stuffy merchants who were the common targets of “citizen comedy.” (show (show Queen watching play) So F’s dark side is muted -- instead of selling exemptions from military service and deserting his comrades, the worst he can do now  is adultery and he is exposed before he can do that. If, as I claimed at the beginning, Falstaff’s love-life love-life is not emphasized, why did Shakespeare write of his attempted affair with not one but two women [show [show 2 overheads]? overheads]? According to David Crane, editor of the New Cambridge Shakespeares, Falstaff is not

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really “in love” at all, or even ‘in lust’; he’s just a con-man with the gift of the gab trying his luck with a new scheme to keep himself in sack  and capon and perhaps even try to return to court (p. ). Now -- what happens to Falstaff on his journey from Shakespeare’s Shakespeare’s globe in the 1590s to Verdi’s La Scala in 1893, 300 years later? Falstaff was one of the Shakespearekespearean Shakespearekespearean figures most popular in a long period of “bardolatry” beginning in the 18th cent in reaction to the decorumof the 1700s and peaking with the romantic period. [show [show Quin in engraving & Bow porcelain -- credit Ray Yarbrough' porcelain collection]. collection ]. In fact he survived survived two two great cultural upheavals, both the Romantic movement and 19thcentury conformity. English touring companies roamed the continent doing Shakespeare. Among those caught up in the prevailing prevaili ng Romantic Shakespeare craze sweeping Europe were Verdi and his librettist Arrigo Boito. My title, in fact, should perhaps have been “Falstaff from Shakespearekespeare via Boito to Verdi” -- [pics of Shakespeare S hakespeare,, Boito, Verdi] Boito being Verdi’s librettist librettist as well as a lifelong Shakespeare student (thea French translation by François Hugo enabled Boito to “fully” understand Shakespearekespeare (Girardi); a translator of Shakespeare for the theater (Antony &Cleoptra and Romeo and Juliet for the famous actress Eleonora Duse, who was not only his mistress but also his pupil, since she considered herself  undereducated); and a successful opera composer, best known for his  Mefistofele  Mefistofele;; a poet of considerable skill and renown.  Verdi at that time was at the the end of a long and distinguished distinguished career, and not writing much much music. At his home of Sant’ Agata, Agata, his wife Giuseppina watched over him carefully, jealously guarding him from any threat of stress. But Boito, then in his forties, was a match for  Verdi, not by persuasive power so much much as self-doubt. self-doubt. Boito had always been shy and (quite mistakenly) insecure; he saw an opportunity for a kind of greatness in servitude to an even greater man -- and he is generally acknowledged to have been Verdi’s best librettist. Having worked with the composer on the enormously  successful Otello, he inspired the old master after a long hiatus to  write one more more blockbuster. blockbuster. That blockbuster blockbuster was Falstaff, Falstaff, Verdi’s final opera and according to some people, his greatest. BOITO’S FALSTAFF. differences from Shakespeare: •got rid of a few characters (Evans the Welsh pedant, Slender, Shallow) -- great improvement in pace and economy 

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•let Falstaff undergo only 2 trials at women’s hands, not 3: ducking and pinching, but not beaten as “the Witch of  Brainford” (Hepokoski 22) •Added scenes and ideas from HIV.1 and perh HV. (but changed intention & context, according to Hepokoski). •created opportunities for ensemble singing for comic confusion, confusion, which was not a part of Shakespeare’s theater, and for thematic participation by orchestra. Presumably for period feel and of course for the fun of it, Boito resurrected archaic Italian language, from Boccaccio and other Rnssance writers: nacchere, cozzare, aizzare, strozzare, rintuzzare &c, plus some pretty choice insults hurled at Falstaff: sconquassa-letti! (bed-smasher or home-wrecker), spacca-farsetti (seam-burster), sfonda-sedili (chair-crusher), sfienca-giumenti (mare’s-back-breaker). This cornucopia of archaic verbal curiosities, this feast of words for  word-lovers, was was almost as as dizzying to Verdi’s Verdi’s original Milanese Milanese audience as it is to us (we know because the newspapers complained about it after the La Scala premiere), reminding us that for greater appreciation, great music benefits much from a little advance familiarity. familia rity. But don’t worry; as usual in the Pine Mountain Music Festival, supertitles will be there to give you most of the verbal fun. Some of the language from the Henry plays makes its way into  Verdi’s Falstaff, Falstaff, in particular particular the “honor” “honor” speech from 1HIV; 1HIV; and so  we must ask how Shakespeare’s Shakespeare’s themes were were transmuted transmuted as Verdi Verdi & Bioto carried the language over from a 16th-cent tragic history to a 19th-century 19th-centu ry comic opera. In general, I suggest that the changes in attitude Boito makes in accordance with his Romantic & Victorian attitudes could almost (but unfairly) be called “Shakespeare lite” - but really they’re they’re just historical historical and linguistic misunderst misunderstanding anding plus plus a rosy idea of “Merrie England” and a dash of 19th-cent prudery. But of course Verdi’s and Boito’s work is masterly in other ways and for other reasons. In Boito’s libretto for the Verdi opera, for example, the eulogy to sack from 2HIV, 4.3 is cleverly put together from speeches in both HIV plays and The The Merry Wives (3.5) itself. But here the kind of  of  relatively harmless Falstaff is asserted; gone is the treasonous and perverse comparison Falstaff makes between his body and a kingdom rising in self-defense [read [read it again]. again]. In other words,

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Boito respects Shakespeare’s modification of Falstaff from the menace to society in the Henry plays to the menace to suburbia in Merry Wives of Windsor. Windsor. What he adds adds is ingenious ingenious and appropriate appropriate wordplay on the “trillo” (thrill or buzz) Falstaff gets from hot wine, and throws in a pleasing rhyme with “grillo” (cricket) and “brillo” (tipsy). He also tosses Verdi a chance to imitate the trill in the orchestra, a reminder that the orchestra in Falstaff is not a accompanist but a participant in the ensemble playing for which this opera is famous. [hand [hand out text, play  “trillo” aria: CD2.12] CD2.12] Let’s look at a couple-three scenes to illustrate what Shakespearekespeare wrote and what Arrigo Boito, Verdi’s librettist, did with it. Put up o’hd, Perform (1) Merry Wives of Windsor 3.3.32-51: Ford courts Mrs. Ford; Boito removes class-conflict class-conflict -- see Merry Wives of Windsor 3.3.33-51); [show 2 o’hds video] cf Merry Wives of Windsor with Verdi: Verdi: v ideo ideo highlights: lovers’ duet, screen & laundry-basket (ensemble work  easier in opera than theater), ducking. (2) Pinched by fairies (o’hd, Merry Wives of Windsor 5.5.77-116,  video).  video). Burning of Falstaff rather than pinching & rolling; no mention of test for society-destroying chastity in opera. CONCLUSION: Verdi’s slip of paper on which he wrote (after finishing the last revisions) his farewell to Falstaff, quoting quoting the opera’s libretto: “‘Go, go, old John. Go your way, as long as you can.’ Then he added, “Amusing sort of scoundrel. Eternally true, under different different masks, masks, in every time, in every place!! Go . . . go . . .  Walk walk . . . Farewell!!!” Farewell!!!” (Hepokoski (Hepokoski 75, quoting quoting Gatti). Gatti). Thnak you for listenning. listenning. I hope you’ll go to see the opera, opera, and please don’t forget Carl Grapentine’s introductory talk.

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SOURCES: Baker, David J.“Devil’s J.“Devil’ s Advocate.” Advocate.” Opera News, 64/8 (Feb. 2000), 47-51. On Boito, mostly Mefistofele. Drabble, Margaret. Falstaff. Lyric Opera of Chicago program, 1999-2000 season. Falstaff, libretto, Synopsis, p.[?1]. Girardi, Michele. “French sources of  Falstaff and  Falstaff and Some aspects of Its Musical Dramaturgy.” tr. Wm. Ashbrook. Opera Quarterly, 11/3 (1995), 45-63. Boito said he used François Hugo’s trans to “understand Shakespeare fully,” Hepokoski, James A. Giuseppe Verdi: “Falstaff.” Cambridge U. P., 1983. Martin, George. George. Aspects of Verdi. Verdi. NY: Limelight Limelight Editions, Editions, 1993 1993 Shakespeare, William. William. The Merry Wives of of Windsor, ed. ed. G. B. Harrison. With intro.

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The “Trillo” of Wine Buono. Ber del vin dolce e sbottonarsi al sole, Dolce cosa! Il buon vino sperde le tetre fole dello dello scon sconfo fort rto, o, acc accend endee l’oc l’occhi chio o e il pensier, dal labbro sal sale al cer cervel vel e quivi risve isveg glia lia il picciol fabbro dei tril trilli li;; un neg negro gril grillo lo che che  vibra entro l’uom brillo. brillo. Trilla ogni fibra in cor, l’allegro etere al trillo guizza, e il giocondo globo squilibra una demenza trillante! E il trillo invade il mondo!!!

That’s better! Drinking sweet wine and unbuttoning in the sun, How sweet it is! Good wine chases away the gloomy thoughts of sor sorrow row,, lights lights up the the eye eye and and the thoughts; from the lips it rise sess to the the br brain ain and and ther here it awakes the tiny smith of trill ills; a blac lack cric crick ket who who chir chirps ps within the tipsy man. man. He trills every fiber in the heart, the joyous ether to the trill quivers, and it makes the happy  globe wobble, the intoxication so thrilling! And the trill takes over the world!!!

The “Trillo” of Wine Buono. Ber del vin dolce e That’s better! Drinking sweet wine sbottonarsi al sole, and unbuttoning in the sun, Dolce cosa! Il buon vino How sweet it is! Good wine chases sperde le tetre fole away the gloomy thoughts dello dello scon sconfo fort rto, o, acc accend endee l’oc l’occhi chio o of sor sorrow row,, lights lights up the the eye eye and and e il pensier, dal labbro the thoughts; from the lips sal sale al cer cervel vel e quivi risve isveg glia lia it rise sess to the the br brain ain and and ther here il picciol fabbro it awakes the tiny smith dei tril trilli li;; un neg negro gril grillo lo che che of trill ills; a blac lack cric crick ket who who chir chirps ps  vibra entro l’uom brillo. brillo. within the tipsy man. man. Trilla ogni fibra in cor, He trills every fiber in the heart, l’allegro etere al trillo the joyous ether to the trill guizza, e il giocondo globo quivers, and it makes the happy  squilibra una demenza globe wobble, the intoxication trillante! E il trillo invade so thrilling! And the trill takes il mondo!!! over the world!!!

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NOT INCLUDED Things KT would like me to mention: supertitles; no arias; funny; ?PUT In somewhere (Nah!): “If you don’t know what the words mean,  you’ll only get about about half as much out out of it than if you do do -supertitles supertitles aren’t all that helpful in i n the case of (1) a literary libretto (2) an ensemble ensemble piece. Target language language is esp. difficult with a good good original libretto (Boito’s wordplay and archaisms, Wagner’s thematic significance). [order of composition of 1HIV, 2HIV, HV, Merry Wives of Windsor?? (relevance to Quickly’s rehab after her imprisonment in 2HIV, 5.4, and her new life as housekeeper in Merry Wives of Windsor)]. [Shakespearekespeare’s historical source -- Fastolf (?of Paston fame) -- later Sir John Oldcastle Oldcastle (early eds. of HIV/1) -- was he real?  Yes, but also also treated as a coward coward in 1HVI. 1HVI. Though presented presented as a Lollard Wycliffite [enthusiast], [enthusiast], i.e. a figure of scorn for a different reason, he was probably confused w/Falstaff in the popular mind.] “Wit in other men”

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