Falstaff from Shakespeare to Verdi Barry Pegg Pine Mountain Music Festival 1st Presbyterian Church, Kingsford Thursday,

May 18th, 2000 Portage Lake United Church, Houghton Wednesday, May 24 , 2000 OVERVIEW. This will take about 75 minutes -- the 2 video excerpts are at the end, so try to hold on till then. If you have heard any of Carl Grapentines intoductory lectures to PMMF operas, you wont need me to tell you to hear his on Falstaff. If you havent, 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, Shakespeares (though not Verdis) Falstaff. The villainous fat characters seem to have two things in common; (1) their love life is not emphasized, (2) they are disreputable, acquisitive, and hedonistically concerned with their own appetites, and (3) they have a tendency to be devoted to drink. SHAKESPEARES FALSTAFF. Getting from Shakespeares Falstaff to Verdis Falstaff can be quite an adventure. We must of course start with Shakespeares Falstaff, and that means looking at what he inherited from the theater 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

(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 were waiting to see. In Shakespeares very much more sophisticated dramas, Falstaff and Iago in Othello are 2 descendants of this character (both, incidentally, in Shakespeare plays on which Verdi based operas). Falstaff has all the vice and venality of the old vice character, and thus is not, just as Iago is not, seen in a comic context, at least not in the history plays. In accordance with the tradition of Shakespeares stage for lowlifes, he speaks prose. In Shakespeares 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 huge body. But Shakespeare being a great dramatist, we see Falstaff not only as a menace to society but also as an amiable rogue. Lets recount his activities in the Henry IV plays, parts of which make their way into Verdis 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 of Prince Henry, Henry IVs son -- what we would now call a mugger (1HIV, 2.1., Gadshill and aftermath in 2.4.). The 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 recriuits go, thus endangering lives in the cause in which he is an officer (1HIV, 4.2). (2HIV, 3.2) Again F. lets recruits buy themselves off (3) a coward on the field of battle: (1HIV, 5.1.129-141) honour speech: Falstaff is anticipating the battle of Shrewsbury, in which it is expected that Hotspur and

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. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Tis insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction [slander] will not suffer it. Therefore Ill 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 Verdis Falstaff -- but with the subversion turned into a comic rebutal of Bardolf & Pistols refusal to take the old con-mans 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 F. arrested for money he owes her. He mollifies her and borrows more -- leeching off women, precursor of 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 get the credit. Hal allows him to get away with it -for now. (2HIV, 4.3) Battle of Gaultree Forest. Falstaff hides 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 and check was the 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

without the rider taking a break]. And here, travel-tainted 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 without a fight)]. This speech does NOT make it into Verdis 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 the play is confirmed, Prince Hal, just crowned Henry V, affirms his political and religious leadership -- the values of the play -- and rejects Falstaffs cowardice and selfindulgence. Hal spurns Falstaffs overfamiliar cry of God save thee, my sweet boy! . . . My King! My Jove! I speak to thee, my heart! with: I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers. . . . Leave gormandizing. Know the grave doth gape For thee thrice wider than for other men. (2HIV 5.5. 4658). All this rejection! Such is the baggage that Falstaff brings to Merry Wives and to Verdi and his librettist Arrigo Boito. So what is there that this evil, Vice-descended character can bring to a frothy comedy which promises but then thwarts suburban infidelity? Why is it that we like Falstaff? Falstaff is lovable not only because the benevolent, life-hungry aspect of his 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 crime, so he presents an energetic love of life. Hes 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 needing 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 when the jealous husband returns unexpectedly, and (as planned by the women) tipped into the Thames: (this speech, from Merry Wives

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, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes which, delivered over to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of your excellent sherris is the warming of the blood, which, before cold and 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. It illumineth the face, which as a 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 from patriotism 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 before HV. There is an 18th-cent (i.e. late and therefore unreliable) tradition that Queen Elizabeh I requested a play on Sir John in Love (incidentally the title of the English composer Benjamin Brittens operatic version); perhaps she wanted to see what other social bonds he could attack, especially bourgeois social bonds -the sophisticates of Elizabeths court were quite ready to be amused by the stuffy merchants who were the common targets of citizen comedy. (show Queen watching play) So Fs 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, Falstaffs love-life is not emphasized, why did Shakespeare write of his attempted affair with not one but two women [show 2 overheads]? According to David Crane, editor of the New Cambridge Shakespeares, Falstaff is not

really in love at all, or even in lust; hes 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 Shakespeares globe in the 1590s to Verdis La Scala in 1893, 300 years later? Falstaff was one of the 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 Quin in engraving & Bow porcelain -- credit Ray Yarbrough' porcelain collection]. In fact he survived 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 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, Boito, Verdi] Boito being Verdis librettist as well as a lifelong Shakespeare student (thea French translation by Franois 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; a poet of considerable skill and renown. Verdi at that time was at the end of a long and distinguished career, and not writing much music. At his home of Sant 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 as 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 Verdis 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 blockbuster. That blockbuster was Falstaff, Verdis final opera and according to some people, his greatest. BOITOS FALSTAFF. differences from Shakespeare: got rid of a few characters (Evans the Welsh pedant, Slender, Shallow) -- great improvement in pace and economy

let Falstaff undergo only 2 trials at womens 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, which was not a part of Shakespeares 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 (mares-back-breaker). This cornucopia of archaic verbal curiosities, this feast of words for word-lovers, was almost as dizzying to Verdis original 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. But dont 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 Verdis Falstaff, in particular the honor speech from 1HIV; and so we must ask how Shakespeares themes were transmuted as Verdi & Bioto carried the language over from a 16th-cent tragic history to a 19th-century 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 theyre just historical and linguistic misunderstanding plus a rosy idea of Merrie England and a dash of 19th-cent prudery. But of course Verdis and Boitos work is masterly in other ways and for other reasons. In Boitos 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 Merry Wives (3.5) itself. But here the kind 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 it again]. In other words,

Boito respects Shakespeares modification of Falstaff from the menace to society in the Henry plays to the menace to suburbia in Merry Wives of Windsor. What he adds is ingenious and 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 out text, play trillo aria: CD2.12] Lets look at a couple-three scenes to illustrate what Shakespearekespeare wrote and what Arrigo Boito, Verdis librettist, did with it. Put up ohd, Perform (1) Merry Wives of Windsor 3.3.32-51: Ford courts Mrs. Ford; Boito removes class-conflict -- see Merry Wives of Windsor 3.3.33-51); [show 2 ohds video] cf Merry Wives of Windsor with Verdi: video highlights: lovers duet, screen & laundry-basket (ensemble work easier in opera than theater), ducking. (2) Pinched by fairies (ohd, Merry Wives of Windsor 5.5.77-116, video). Burning of Falstaff rather than pinching & rolling; no mention of test for society-destroying chastity in opera. CONCLUSION: Verdis slip of paper on which he wrote (after finishing the last revisions) his farewell to Falstaff, quoting the operas libretto: Go, go, old John. Go your way, as long as you can. Then he added, Amusing sort of scoundrel. Eternally true, under different masks, in every time, in every place!! Go . . . go . . . Walk walk . . . Farewell!!! (Hepokoski 75, quoting Gatti). Thnak you for listenning. I hope youll go to see the opera, and please dont forget Carl Grapentines introductory talk.

SOURCES: Baker, David J.Devils 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 Some aspects of Its Musical Dramaturgy. tr. Wm. Ashbrook. Opera Quarterly, 11/3 (1995), 45-63. Boito said he used Franois Hugos trans to understand Shakespeare fully, Hepokoski, James A. Giuseppe Verdi: Falstaff. Cambridge U. P., 1983. Martin, George. Aspects of Verdi. NY: Limelight Editions, 1993 Shakespeare, William. The Merry Wives of Windsor, ed. G. B. Harrison. With intro.

The Trillo of Wine Buono. Ber del vin dolce e sbottonarsi al sole, Dolce cosa! Il buon vino sperde le tetre fole dello sconforto, accende locchio e il pensier, dal labbro sale al cervel e quivi risveglia il picciol fabbro dei trilli; un negro grillo che vibra entro luom brillo. Trilla ogni fibra in cor, lallegro etere al trillo guizza, e il giocondo globo squilibra una demenza trillante! E il trillo invade il mondo!!! Thats better! Drinking sweet wine and unbuttoning in the sun, How sweet it is! Good wine chases away the gloomy thoughts of sorrow, lights up the eye and the thoughts; from the lips it rises to the brain and there it awakes the tiny smith of trills; a black cricket who chirps within the tipsy 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 Thats 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 sconforto, accende locchio of sorrow, lights up the eye and e il pensier, dal labbro the thoughts; from the lips sale al cervel e quivi risveglia it rises to the brain and there il picciol fabbro it awakes the tiny smith dei trilli; un negro grillo che of trills; a black cricket who chirps vibra entro luom brillo. within the tipsy man. Trilla ogni fibra in cor, He trills every fiber in the heart, lallegro 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 dont know what the words mean, youll only get about half as much out of it than if you do -supertitles arent all that helpful in the case of (1) a literary libretto (2) an ensemble piece. Target language is esp. difficult with a good original libretto (Boitos wordplay and archaisms, Wagners thematic significance). [order of composition of 1HIV, 2HIV, HV, Merry Wives of Windsor?? (relevance to Quicklys rehab after her imprisonment in 2HIV, 5.4, and her new life as housekeeper in Merry Wives of Windsor)]. [Shakespearekespeares historical source -- Fastolf (?of Paston fame) -- later Sir John Oldcastle (early eds. of HIV/1) -- was he real? Yes, but also treated as a coward in 1HVI. Though presented as a Lollard Wycliffite [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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