FALSTAFF

 WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS!

I can't believe it's taken me months to finally get around to this. 

If only there were some good videos of this new production on YouTube.  

This was Verdi's last opera.  It is an adaptation of Shakespeare's classic comedy, The Merry Wives of Windsor.  The story goes the Queen Elizabeth I liked the character of Sir John Falstaff so much that she wanted a play based entirely around him.  Shakespeare obliged.  

Giuseppe Verdi was a die-hard fan of Shakespeare's plays.  He had already made two operas based off of Shakespeare; Macbeth and Otello.  But he had not written a comedy since the disastrous premiere of Un giorno di regno.  Indeed his most famous and performed operas are dramatic tragedies such as Aida, Il Trovatore, Rigoletto, La Traviata, and Otello.  Verdi  wasn't so sure about writing a comedy but his librettist (that's the scriptwriter for an opera), Arrigo Boito, was insistent.  Verdi agreed.  Falstaff was a rousing success at its premiere in 1893.  

I'm not going to give my usually performance play-by-play.  I'm just going to summarize the whole deal. 

Act 1 revolves around Sir John Falstaff writing letters to to married women; Mrs. Alice Ford and Mrs. Meg Page.  The women receive the letters and with the help of Mistress Quickly, prepare to fool him. 

Act 2 shows Falstaff carrying out his plan.  Meanwhile, Nannetta (Ford's daughter in the opera, even though she was Page's daughter in the play), is upset because her father wants he to marry Dr. Caius, but she herself is in love with Fenton.  Falstaff tries to woo Mrs. Ford, but she and Mrs. Page trick him into getting into a laundry hamper and dump him in the river.  

Act 3 centers around the women carrying their scheme even further and tricking Falstaff into think that Mrs. Ford wants to meet him that night.  Meanwhile, they also plan a switch so that Fenton will get Nanetta and Dr. Caius won't.  

Act 4 shows the scheme carried out, Falstaff gets pranked, Fenton and Nannetta get married, and everyone lived happily ever after.

This production set the opera in the 1950's, complete with all sorts of props, and really hilarious scenes with food (Nannetta crying into tub of ice cream in Act 2 was one such gem).  

That's about as much as I can say, except that it is utterly hilarious.  

Mozart's Music

Why must it take me several weeks before I post something like this?  

I heard this a few weeks ago; the Madison Symphony Orchestra performed Mozart's famous Requiem.  It was unfinished at the time of his death and was finished by Franz Xaver Süssmayr (sorry Amadeus fans, it was not Salieri).  

This was the first time I heard mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack perform.  I knew she was performing with Madison Opera, but I never heard her (actually, I was at Governor Dodge State Park the day Madison Opera did a broadcast recording of her performance in La Cenerentola).  But her voice is something else.  

I have already given the basic overview of the various components of a typical Reqiuem, but I must say if there is one part of the work that is very much of interest to many people, it is the Dies Irae.  This part of the work focuses on the Last Judgement and is plea for mercy and deliverance from Hell.  

I suggest getting it out.