On an operatic bad day you can sometimes see forever -- but oftentimes not

"Wicked world. -- There's no more virtue. -- Everything's in decline."

-- A man who knows a thing or two about, you know, things

A man staggers up to an inn . . .

The exterior of the inn, which along with its name bears the motto: "HONNY SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE." A bench beside the door. It's the hour of twilight.

Our man is seated on the bench, meditating. Then he stirs himself, pounds on the bench with a big fist, and turning toward the interior of the inn calls to the host.

by Ken

Even if we make clear that by "an operatic bad day" I don't mean a bad day for the audience (of which I often feel I've experienced not just my own share but a whole bunch of other people's) but a bad day for the main character(s) onstage, it may seem oxymoronic to be talking about "operatic bad days." Aren't they mostly pretty rotten? Isn't this what opera is usually about? Isn't it a significant part of what we normally think it means for something to be "operatic"?

The kind of bad day I'm thinking of, though, isn't just a day when everything seems to go wrong, even disastrously wrong. I'm thinking of the kind of day when the victim realizes that he/she has played a major role in setting off the unfortunate chain of events, and as a result, despite a certain lack of totally accurate perspective, owing to the inevitable bleakness of spirit, sees truth(s) stretching out as far as the imagination can see.

The part about the victim realizing that he/she has played a major role in setting off the unfortunate chain of events clearly excludes out companion today. In Sir John Falstaff's imagination nothing is his fault, and never mind that it was his own crackpot scheme to seduce one or maybe two of the merry wives of Windsor, not even for libidinous satisfaction but to tap into their not-so-merry husbands' coffers to provide himself with a bit of working capital, blindly falling into separate traps set by both the women and men of Windsor, that resulted in his being dumped unceremoniously into the Thames in that giant basket full of rank laundry.


SIR JOHN'S FEELING OF VICTIMHOOD CERTAINLY
IS EPIC, THOUGH -- RUNNING DEEP AND, ER, WIDE

Verdi's Falstaff holds court in the Garter Inn

"Reverenza!": Mistress Quickly approaches Falstaff in the Garter Inn.

The interior of the Garter Inn.. FALSTAFF as always sprawled in his big chair in its usual place, drinking his Xeres. BARDOLFO and PISTOLA near the back near the door at left.

BARDOLFO and PISTOLA [beating their breasts in acts of repentance]: We're penitent, and contrite.
FALSTAFF: Man returns to his vices,
like the cat to fat.
BARDOLFO and PISTOLA: And we return to your service.
BARDOLFO: Master, out there there's a woman
who asks to be admitted to your presence.
FALSTAFF: Let her enter.
[BARDOLFO goes out and returns with MISTRESS QUICKLY.]
QUICKLY [bowing deeply to FALSTAFF]: Your reverence!
FALSTAFF: Good day, good woman.
QUICKLY: Your reverence!

Giuseppe Nessi (t), Bardolfo; Cristiano Dalamangas (bs), Pistola; Giuseppe Taddei (b), Sir John Falstaff; Amalia Pini (ms), Mistress Quickly; RAI Turin Symphony Orchestra, Mario Rossi, cond. Cetra, broadcast performance, 1949

Renato Ercolani (t), Bardolfo; Nicola Zaccaria (bs), Pistola; Tito Gobbi (b), Sir John Falstaff; Fedora Barbieri (ms), Mistress Quickly; Philharmonia Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan, cond. EMI, recorded 1956

by Ken

As promised in Friday night's preview, when we heard Master Ford's deliciously awesome monologue from Act II, Scene 1 of Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, with a magical libretto by Arrigo Boito (who had also written the utterly different libretto for Verdi's Otello), today we're going to work our way through the scene.

The opera, you may recall, is constructed of three acts with two scenes each, all roughly the same length. The first scene of each act is set in the Garter Inn in Windsor, the roost of the aging Sir John Falstaff, who's dealing with a severe case of impecuniousness, and in the opening scene hatched a nutty scheme, based on his estimate of his supposedly awesome seductive powers, to seduce one or both of two merry wives of Windsor, Mistress Alice Ford and/or her next-door neighbor, Mistress Meg Page. He has sent them comically poetical love letters, identical except for the names, and unbeknownst to him this caper has become known to, well, pretty much everyone in the two, and rival revenge plots have been hatched. (We've focused on Falstaff before, but mostly heading forward toward the sublime final scene in Windsor Forest.)

So here we are back at the Garter, and what we've already heard above is the arrival, in full fawning mode, of the elderly Mistress Quickly, to launch the merry wives' plot.


I HAVE TO SLIP IN A QUICK PERFORMANCE NOTE

Re-preview: Enter Donizetti's phony-elixir-seller, Dr. Dulcamara

Again, there's a reason why we've been listening to this particular performance of Donizetti's Elixir of Love. We'll get to that, finally, this Sunday (I hope).

by Ken

I'm afraid we got kind of hung up heading from last week's preview, "There's something about the opening of Act II of Donizetti's Elixir of Love," to a post based on Donizetti's great operatic comedy. But I don't mind further-previewing it.

In the original preview we indeed heard the opening of Act II, including the little performance-duet between the traveling quack Dr. Dulcamara and Adina.

DONIZETTI: L'Elisir d'amore: Act II opening, Chorus, "Cantiamo, cantiam" ("Let's sing, let's sing"); Duo, Dulcamara-Adina, "Io son rico, tu sei bella" ("I'm rich, you're beautiful")
[For Italian-English texts, see last week's post.]

Mario Sereni (b), Sgt. Belcore; Renato Capecchi (b), Dr. Dulcamara; Angela Arena (s), Giannetta; Mirella Freni (s), Adina; Rome Opera Orchestra, Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, cond. EMI, recorded August 1966

ENTER DR. DULCAMARA

For now let me just say again that there's a reason why we heard this particular performance of this particular excerpt, and we'll get to that Sunday, probably. Meanwhile tonight I thought we would hear Dr. Dulcamara's entrance in Act I, which at the Met used to be accomplished in a hot-air balloon.