Verdi as you've never heard him before. His last opera, premiered in 1893 when he was almost 80 years old, six years after Otello, which itself came 16 years after Aida.
After Shakespeare. I know Falstaff from Henry IV Part I which was an O-Level set text, but I don't know Merry Wives of Windsor. Wikipedia
This is on Sky Arts quite often, a cast made up mainly of singers just below star status. And Juan Diego Florez, who wasn't as stellar then as he is now. Coincidentally, it was the first thing recorded onto my Sky+ Box and by alphabetical chance it happens to be the first video I have transferred to DVD.
The production is boringly traditional, costumes an approximation to Elizabethan clothes, the sets seemingly painted flats, much of the singing delivered by people standing static at the front of the stage facing forward, might as well be a concert performance. Or the Village G&S Society's annual Mikado. (I wrote that before I realised it was a recreation of a 1913 production; I just have to ask why!).
Story quite simple - John Falstaff has written almost identical letters to various married women in the village. They compare notes and conspire...Meanwhile, Fenton and Nannetta are courting illicitly. Their music is more lyrical and in a much brighter key than that of the older folk, whose music is more conversational, on the whole. The conspiracy consists of them arranging an assignation, getting various men of the village in on the conspiracy, putting Falstaff in a linen chest and throwing him in the Thames, and then meeting up later in the woods to really teach him a lesson.
I've not explained this particularly well but Wikipedia has a more detailed synopsis
This isn't a 'pretty tunes' opera where you can go away whistling the tunes. Some people emphasise the modernism, but it isn't 'modern' in a twelve-tone anti-melodic way.
I have seen it a few times and it has yet to make the same overwhelming impression as most of his middle and late operas do. I do recognise that it is regarded as less accessible, a deliberate change in style. One thing I will say for it is that it is infinitely better than Vaughan Williams' version, Sir John in Love, which I had the misfortune to endure at ENO last year. But that us damning with faint praise.
I have tried so hard to like it, I have watched it three times in just the past couple of weeks. I have tried so hard to concentrate but keep finding that my attention is drawn by other distractions. I know I should try harder, I know that rewards grow proportionate to the efforts made. But I just can't make myself go that extra distance. I know full well that Falstaff is different from all of Verdi's other operas. Liking Falstaff is the sign of a thinking person, dilettantes don't get it. So I'm a Philistine shrug. Maybe I'll get it one day, but I'm not going to beat myself up in the process. Perhaps if I were to see it live, with a top cast or a great production, I would like it more. And I certainly wouldn't avoid it, as such, although it would be at most Priority 2 in weighing up cost, time, energy etc.
I kind of understand that part of the attraction is the characters. The trouble is, I feel no empathy for them. I think we are supposed to really like Falstaff as an embodiment of so much of the human spirit, the self-delusion, the gluttony, the unprincipled behaviour. But I'm afraid I just don't get that either. Sure, there are loads of people out there like him, but so what shrugs
I'm sorry, I set off to blog about every opera I own in alphabetical order, attempting to study them with some care, and to try and convey my unique personal insight...not that I'm claiming any special insight, just that this is my blog, and it's just a place where I write, like a private diary that I happen to allow other people to read, and in writing reviews of things, my primary customer is me (I also hope that readers enjoy what I write, but I'm not writing with the intention of drawing attention). I have approximately 250 versions of 125 operas, and growing, so life is too short to get too worked up about one I don't get anything out of.
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