Falstaff

For this performance of Verdi’s last opera from 1893, Thomas Hengelbrock and the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble are intensively researching the sound of this era and playing exclusively on instruments from Verdi’s time.
They were already highly successful in this way two years ago at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden with Verdi’s « Rigoletto ».

For a long time Verdi’s last opera was misunderstood as a cheerful comedy in disguise, until many Verdi scholars realised that a Buffonesque reading of this « dramma giocoso » could not do justice to its ambiguous character. In his libretto, Arrigo Boito unleashes a veritable firework of poetic artistry, and Verdi does not shy away from quoting his own music, but also that of Offenbach and Wagner, in order to reveal the ridiculousness of his title character – always lurking behind the whimsical play with tradition is a distance that is the basis of all advanced art in the later 19th century: the shock that familiar traditions no longer offer a foothold in an increasingly complex world.

As in most Verdi operas, « Falstaff » is also about fantasies of power: the title character believes he has unlimited power over women, Ford believes he has power over his daughter, and all the women believe they can abuse the power cunningly gained over Falstaff for a cruel ritual. These fantasies and the characters driven by them are ruthlessly exposed to ridicule.

Time and again, the listener will ask himself whether he has not just missed a subtle hint – especially at those points where Verdi’s music is particularly stirring in its dramatic brilliance and orchestral polychromy. For example, when the music begins with clear echoes of the German-Austrian symphonic tradition of the 19th century – a contrasting secondary theme is even introduced as in a sonata movement and commented on by Falstaff with the words « Ecco la mia risposta » (« And this is my answer »). In this, as in the famous final fugue, one might suspect an ironic reckoning by Verdi with those critics to whom mastery of sonata form and counterpoint meant everything. Falstaff’s serenade in the second act continues to quote melodic phrases from Beckmesser’s confused « counter-aria » in Wagner’s « Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg », clearly audible to everyone.

No doubt about it: Verdi’s « Falstaff » is an artful swan song to 19th century opera – a critical reflection on its own genre. It is no coincidence that the British composer Charles Villiers Stanford noted that « Verdi’s study of Beethoven’s quartets » had left clear traces in the score. As with the late Beethoven, Verdi’s rethinking of the preconditions of his own composing led to a distancing from his own ego. Accordingly, his farewell work is not a whimsical comedy, but one of the most poignant and profound operas composed in the 19th century.