Verdi’s last smile

Discover the opera

ELISABETTA FAVA Maestro, your conducting of Falstaff at the Maggio Musicale last year, a last-minute addition to resolve a critical situation, was proof of your great love and refined knowledge of this score.
DANIELE GATTI You never run out of knowledge about a score like Falstaff. For me it is a love from my youth that goes back to my years at the Conservatory. We had analysed it in the composition course with Bruno Zanolini and, at the same time, in a monographic course with Maestro Testi. The culmination of this study was the performance of the opera at the inauguration of La Scala on December 7, 1980, conducted by Lorin Maazel and directed by Strehler. I was there, in the gallery, after standing in a long queue.

All these experiences made me fall in love with this opera. Of course, years would pass before I conducted it. I first tackled it in a semi-staged version at Santa Cecilia in 1997, and since then I have never tired of returning to it. I have had many other opportunities, in Bologna in 2001, with Pizzi as director, then at the Vienna State Opera, in Zurich, in London in 2012, with Carsen's production, which I found again in Amsterdam in 2014 and at La Scala in 2015. At the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, however, it was directed by Mario Martone. In short, it is one of the operas I have directed most often, and I love it deeply.

EF Can Falstaff really be defined as an opera buffa?
DG I don't think so. There may be situations that make you smile, but it is an opera full of nostalgia. Falstaff is not old, but he feels that he is in his twilight years. He thinks back several times to his youth, undramatically but certainly with great melancholy, a feeling that Verdi beautifully describes in the first scene of Act III, with the monologue "Mondo ladro". Verdi speaks of opera buffa, but we should not take everything he writes literally; it is better to meditate on what emerges from the score. Perhaps we should not even look for a definitive answer, because the meaning of the opera goes beyond that.

EF You can also often detect a bitter undertone...
DG Of course, there is a certain cruelty in the women's rage at Falstaff, against his desire to feel that he is still alive, loved, wanted. After all, Falstaff is alone; there is no one around him except two thugs who betray him at the first opportunity, but we see no affection. Speaking of affection, there are three different kinds of love in Falstaff.

It is hard to say what Falstaff thinks about love, but the fact is that in his role as suitor he speaks very tender words to Alice. Ford and Alice, on the other hand, are the married couple, and seem to be in a bit of a crisis; and finally, there is the budding love between Nannetta and Fenton, which is thwarted by Ford. Ford, on the other hand, is a character who suffers. What hurts him is jealousy, perhaps brought on by the knowledge that he cannot speak Falstaff's tender words, which are too refined for him.

EF In other words, this piece is so full of subtleties that it is difficult to have a clear interpretation.
DG It can be read from different angles. There is the comic side, with the prank to punish Falstaff. Then there is the jealousy, which mainly concerns Ford, who is jealous not only of his wife, but also of the plans he has made as pater familias, to which he will not tolerate any alternative. He finds it difficult to accept that his daughter wants to be autonomous in her choices. And then there is the aspect of distance. There is a man who has had a past of some significance, Falstaff, and who has been reduced to what he is now partly by the pleasure of enjoying life: eating, drinking, living every experience to the fullest. The folly of writing two identical letters shows that he is more concerned with presenting himself in a certain way than with trying to understand who is in front of him.

EF When Strauss referred to Falstaff in his conception of the Rosenkavalier, were these perhaps the very aspects that interested him?
DG Undoubtedly, the passage of time is a common element - the ability to accept defeat, to understand that you have to adapt to the pace of life. I think this is also the essence of Verdi's theatre, the constant bitterness and nostalgia of Verdi himself. In Falstaff, these aspects are transformed into smiles, but if we read the letters of Verdi's older self, we can sense dark thoughts, an extreme sadness that only finds a flicker of hope in the theatre.

EF These nuances are also reflected in the conversational style of Falstaff, so the conductor must be able to hold everything together, but also bring out all these miniature aspects. This is no easy task...
DG In this sense, too, Falstaff is unique. There is nothing like him before or after him (except perhaps Gianni Schicchi). It remains a marvellous lone star, the likes of which even Aida and Otello cannot reach.

Its structure, its fluid musical dictation and its treatment of the voices are unprecedented. There are still a few moments that have been called 'arias' that survive, including Ford's monologue; the aria 'Quand'ero paggio del duca di Norfolk', one of the shortest ever written; and, in the final scene, the two solos by Fenton (the sonnet) and Nannetta (as Queen of the Fairies).

But although these are closed pieces, they are all conceived in a new way, as moments of suspension. It is also interesting that the two young people are the only real recipients of the traditional structures, since Ford's monologue is also formally open.

EF Do you sense in Ford's monologue a revival of the great solos in open form, for example from Rigoletto?
DG There is nothing strange about taking inspiration from many years earlier; indeed, compared to others of its time, Rigoletto was much more forward-looking than Falstaff, which was staged almost simultaneously with Bohème and was by an author who had by then known Wagner. There is, however, a different way of writing, one is no longer constrained by the rapidity of drafting of 30 years earlier. This means that the orchestra can play a fundamental role in Falstaff, in terms of transparency, richness of harmony, and continuous development of the musical material.

EF Could one say that it is a piece that adopts the language of the 19th century, but with a completely 20th-century look?
DG I am more and more convinced that the Parisian experience was decisive for Verdi's modernity. He became a European composer, not just an Italian one, precisely because, from 1847 onwards, he went to Paris regularly, not only to write the operas he was commissioned to write, from Jerusalem and Vespers to Macbeth in 1865 and Don Carlos. Verdi remained in contact with Paris for 50 years, leaving Italy and immersing himself in this international city, which at the time was the true capital of Europe (more than Vienna), meant being in contact with all the musical movements of the time. In Paris, Verdi was able to broaden his horizons, and this is reflected in his work: the city nourished him for 50 years.

EF In fact, sometimes in Verdi's scores there are details that could be found in Schubert or Chopin, in the instrumental repertoire of the time.
DG There is also Liszt, and Meyerbeer. When Verdi tackled his first great opera, Les vêpres siciliennes, you could sense his desire to be equal to the Parisian models, especially in the care he took with the instrumentation, which was no longer fast and blocked, but more calligraphic, less sharp than what he was writing or had already written.

Parisian critics opposed him almost to the end. Only with Otello and Falstaff did Paris recognise him as a great European composer. Nevertheless, Verdi continued to visit the French capital and to assimilate what he heard there. This radically changed the internal development of his pieces, their harmonic world. His greatness lies precisely in the fact that he remained himself, but with the humility to understand the developments brought about by other composers.

EF The instrumental mastery achieved is very evident in the final image of Falstaff, with its fantastic, almost Mendelssohnian quality.
DG After the more "bizarre" fantasy of Macbeth, Verdi finds solutions - even timbral ones - in the finale of Falstaff that bring him even closer to Berlioz. It is always difficult to achieve this image, even scenically, a kind of nocturnal ballad with virtuosity rooted in the text, including the metre. Think, for example, of the second scene of Act I, where two different metres overlap, ternary for the women, binary for the men, choices for which Verdi and Boito compete and influence each other, weaving a series of virtuosities into the vocal, literary and instrumental writing.

You can see why musicians love this opera so much. While La traviata, Rigoletto or Don Carlo make us feel directly involved, Falstaff is listened to with more emotional detachment, but with an ever-changing admiration. Every time I have done it, I have felt an almost sacred respect, a sense of something that transcends us.

EF Speaking of company and virtuosity, the great screen scene is perhaps one of the most difficult pages ever written.
DG It's a very complicated scene, with tension of the highest level, both on stage and in the orchestra. In terms of difficulty, it can be compared to the Maestri Cantori brawl. There are many parallels between the two works, probably in their own right. The nostalgic note that characterises Hans Sachs; the structure of the affair itself, with Eva and Nannetta falling in love with a "third wheel"; the Baraonda, placed in the same position, which closes the second act; Sachs's solo and Falstaff's solo as the opening of the third act; the final outdoor scene (the Nuremberg meadow and the Windsor Forest); the concluding moral. And both operas have many comic features, yes, but in their substance, they do not really make you laugh, but rather smile with melancholy.

 

Elisabetta Fava