Verdi's "Falstaff" Trivia Quiz

Answer: False

Verdi's comic opera "Un Giorno di Regno" ("King for a Day") was begun after the tragic death of both his children by his first wife, the former Margherita Barezzi. While he was at work on the opera, Margherita herself became seriously ill with rheumatic fever and soon, according to Verdi, "a third coffin went out of my house! I was alone! Alone!".

In a state of near-total emotional collapse, Verdi finished his comedy, which premiered in September of 1840 (by ironic coincidence, an opera by Otto Nikolai- "Il Templario" -premiered the same season; Nikolai would later write an operatic version of the Falstaff story: "Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor").

The opera was a dismal failure at its premiere, although subsequent perfomances have revealed it to be not without considerable charm and melodic beauty.

Answer: True

Verdi had long wished to create a comic opera, but was stymied by the lack of a libretto of the requisite quality (no doubt he was doubly cautious after the long-ago debacle of "Un Giorno di Regno"). It was Boito who persuaded the elderly composer that "After the tragedy of 'Otello', to finish with a mighty burst of laughter, that is to astonish the world!"

Answer: Edward Elgar

Elgar's 1913 "Symphonic Study 'Falstaff'" is a bittersweet work emphasizing both the comic and tragic aspects of Shakespeare's knight; he did not, however, compose an operatic treatment.

Otto Nicolai's charming 1949 opera "Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor" is the best-known work of this short-lived German prodigy. Nicolai tragically died of a stroke a few months after the opera's premiere, without ever learning that the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin had elected him a member that very day. The opera's overture is a favorite concert piece (Wagner borrowed the "moonlight" motif with which the overture begins for a scene in "Die Meistersinger") and the opera is still performed with some frequency. It was made into a film for the German cinema in 1950 directed by Georg Wildhagen.
Vaughan Williams' delightfully tuneful 1928 opera "Sir John in Love" is arguably his best work in this genre. It treats the same story as Verdi's and Nicolai's and includes the prototype of the composer's celebrated fantasia on "Greensleeves".

Gustav Holst's 1925 opera "At the Boar's Head" deals with episodes from Shakespeare's "Henry IV, parts I & II" featuring Falstaff's wooing of Doll tearsheet and his relationship with Prince Hal.

Answer: Antonio Salieri

Salieri's "Falstaff" was one of his less successful operas, having recieved only 26 performances at the court theatre; however it is not without considerable interest. The composer cleverly uses certain antiquated styles for comedic effect; Mrs. Slender's "Vendetta, si, vendetta!" and Ford's "Furie che m'agitate" cleverly mimic the conventions of the opera seria "rage" arias (in much the same way that Mozart did in Donna Elvira's "Ah fuggi il traditor!" in "Don Giovanni"). Particularly charming is the aria "O! Die manner kenn ich schonn" sung by Mrs. Ford in a comic mixture of German and Italian.

This comes from an un-Shakespearean scene in which she flirts with Falstaff whilst disguised as a German fraulein. Beethoven wrote a series of variations on the duet "La stessa, la stessissima" from this opera.

Answer: Played down the romance between the two young lovers.

Boito, following Verdi's wishes, actually gives greater measure to the young lovers than did Shakespeare; Verdi had written that he wanted to sprinkle their lyrical scenes throughout the opera "...like sugar on a tart." The characters of Dr. Caius, Justice Shallow, Sir Hugh Evans, and Slender were cleverly telescoped by Boito into the single character of Dr. Caius.

This served to reduce Nanetta's two unwelcome suitors to one and reduced the three weddings at the end to two, a change Verdi likewise applauded.

The episode in which Falstaff is tricked by the women into impersonating one "Mother Prat" of Brentford was excised from the plot; Boito sensibly reasoned that Falstaff would hardly be fool enough to have been duped three times.

Answer: True

Part of the "L'onore" monologue in Act I is a paraphrase of Falstaff's speech to Prince Hal in Act V, scene 1 of "Henry IV, Part I" in which Falstaff asks the Prince: "Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is honour? A word." Earlier in the first scene of Act I, the line about Bardolph's nose being Falstaff's guiding lantern is also taken from a scene in Act III, scene 3 of "Henry IV, Part I".

The part of the Act III soliloquy in which Falstaff praises the restorative powers of the "sherris" is taken from a soliloquy in "Henry IV, Part II" (Act IV, scene 3). Finally, after his final humiliation in Windsor Park, Falstaff tries to humble his tormentors somewhat memorably quoting from "Henry IV, Part II" (Act I, scene 2): "I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men."

Answer: Mistress Quickly

Though she has some lengthy passages of music in her two scenes with Falstaff and in Act II, scene 2 in which she relates to the women the details of her conversation with him, Mistress Quickly has no formal set-piece in this opera, nor do Mistresses Page and Ford. Ford has his wonderful monologue in Act II, scene 1; Fenton has one at the beginning of Act III, scene 2 and Nanetta has the enchanting aria "Sul fil d'un soffio etesio" in the same scene, when she impersonates the "Queen of the fairies".

Answer: Honour

Falstaff has asked his two nefarious sidekicks, Bardolph and Pistol to each deliver a love letter from him to the mistresses Ford and Page. Both indignantly refuse; Pistol stoutly insists that he is no Pandarus (citing the infamous go-between for Troilus and Cressida), while Bardolph declares that his honour will not permit him to do it.

After dispatching the page, Robin, to deliver the letters, Falstaff derides his two cronies self-righteous invocation of "honour"; he calls them thieves, and rhetorically asks what practical use "honour" is to one's stomach, head, feet, etc. in a monologue which is derived both from Shakespeare's "The Merry Wives of Windsor" and "Henry IV, Part I".

Answer: The men and women sing in different time signatures.

This remarkable ensemble begins with the men (Ford, Dr. Caius, Bardolph, and Pistol) singing in 4/4 time. When the women make their entrance, they begin singing in 6/8 time superimposed upon the 4/4 music sung by the men. Getting this ensemble to work is no mean feat, as can be imagined, and is the supreme test of any opera company's ensemble (and of any conductor's skill).

Answer: Reverenza (Your reverence)

Verdi sets this word with a deep "bow" suggested in the vocal line, which gives the mezzo an opportunity to display the quality of her lower register.

Answer: La Traviata

The phrase in question is Violetta's line: "Povera donna! Sola, abbandonata in questo popoloso deserto che appelano Parigi" ("Poor woman! Alone, abandoned in this populous desert called Paris"). In both cases, the phrase "Povera donna!" is intended to be heavily ironic.

Answer: French horn

Near the beginning of this aria, when Ford imagines himself betrayed by his wife in his own house, the "corni" (horns, symbolic of those worn by a cuckolded spouse) accompany the vocal line with a baleful stepwise figure. At the end of the monologue, when Ford sings of his heart being consumed with jealousy ("La fondo del mio cor la gelosia".), the horns respond with a derisive "guffaw".

In the "Figaro" aria, Mozart had used discreet horn fanfares to answer Figaro's insinuation "Gia ognuno lo sa!" ("You know what they [women] do!").

Answer: Nanetta

Nanetta, who is in love with Fenton, is distraught because her father has arranged for her to marry Dr. Caius. The other women are aghast at this and Alice promises Nanetta that she will take care of the matter.

Answer: Lute

The libretto specifies "un liuto"; this is almost never actually played by the singer portraying Alice.

Answer: Trill

At the beginning of this aria, Falstaff is embittered and demoralised after his humiliation at the Ford's house where he was tossed into the Thames in a basket of dirty laundry. As he sips the warm wine, however, his spirits revive considerably. The great trill in the orchestra, beginning with the solo flute and continuing through the strings and woodwinds until it envelopes the whole orchestra, is a musical response to Falstaff's line "E il trillo invade de il mondo!" ("And a trill infiltrates the world!").

Answer: Yes

The song "Fie on sinful fantasy!" is sung in the play while tha assorted "fairies" and others pinch and torment the old knight. The refrain of this song is "Pinch him, fairies, mutually. Pinch him for his villianny! Pinch him and burn him and turn him about, 'til candles and starlight and moonshine be out!"

Answer: Bardolph

In "The Merry Wives of Windsor", both Slender and Dr. Caius, Ann Page's two unwanted suitors, are tricked into marrying peasant boys instead. In the opera, the two suitors are merged into the single character of Dr. Caius who, in a scene of great hilarity, finds himself married to a heavily veiled Bardolph instead of Nanetta.

Answer: Fugue

Verdi, who had detested having to write fugues for his music theory lessons, had much earlier written a fugue for the battle scene in "Macbeth". He wrote to a friend "You will laugh when you see that I have written a fugue for the battle! I, who detest everything that smacks of theory.

But I assure you that in this case, the fugue form is permissible. The mad chase of subjects and counter-subjects, and the clash of dissonances, and the general uproar can suggest a battle quite well." Shortly after advising Boito to begin work on the libretto to "Falstaff", Verdi wrote to him "I'm amusing myself by writing fugues! Yes sir, a fugue: and a comic fugue which would be suitable for "Falstaff"

Answer: As You Like It

Boito paraphrases the key phrase of Jacques' famous speech from Shakespeare's "As You Like It": "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players" as "Tutto nel mondo e burla, l'uom e nato burlone" ("All in the world is a jest, Man is born a comedian"). Boito's text emphasizes the frivolity and capriciousness of life, in which one may be the butt of a jest or have the final laugh.

Although it is based on the "As You Like It" speech, Boito's text is notably different in character.

Answer: King Lear

Verdi had approached the librettists Salvatore Cammerano and Antonio Somna about a libretto based on Shakespeare's tragedy. Somma had actually completed a libretto and been paid by the composer at about the time he was at work on "Les Vepres Siciliennes", but nothing came of it.

After "Falstaff", Verdi had actually spoken to Boito about a libretto for "Lear" based on Somna's version, and Boito had actually begun to draft a libretto. However, at age 83, the composer had decided that it was too late and presented Somna's libretto to the young Mascagni, who had achieved tremendous fame from his opera "Cavelleria Rusticana". Mascagni asked Verdi why he had never completed the work, upon which Verdi admitted that Lear's mad scene on the heath had always terrified him (Verdi struggled throughout his life with depression and neuroses). Charles Osborne, in his excellent book on Verdi's operas, speculates that some of Verdi's sketch material for "Lear" may have ended up in "Simon Boccanegra" and that Leonore's Act I cavatina "Me pellegrina ed orfana" ("I shall be a pilgrim and orphan") from "La Forza Del Destino" may have been an aria for Cordelia.