Bauman Falstaff

8/10/2019 Bauman Falstaff

1/9

The Young Lovers in "Falstaff"Author(s): Thomas BaumanSource: 19th-Century Music, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Summer, 1985), pp. 62-69Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/746242.

Accessed: 01/04/2013 01:13

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at.

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

University of California Pressis collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to 19th-

Century Music.
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucalhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/746242?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/746242?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucal


2/9


3/9


4/9

feigning

the ardent

lover,

to the

wives'

pre-

tended

reciprocation,

and

eventually

to the

masquerade

n Windsor

Park,

where the

entire

cast

of

characters-including

Fenton and

Nan-

netta-dons

disguises.

Hiding,

therefore,

may

be said

to link the lov-

ers with

their elders

rather

than

distinguishing

them. But is this a dramatic link, orarethe lov-

ers in Windsor

Park

as

divorced from

reality

as

the lovers at verbal

swordplay

in

act I?

Let

us

look at

their

progress,

musical and

dramatic,

through

the four scenes in which

they appear.

n

the two

garden

encounters in

I,

ii,

Boito set their

exchanges

n

virtually

unbroken

quinari,

which

Verdi turned

into

garlands

of two-bar

phrases.

These

draw their

lyricism,

like

nearly

all

the

love music

in

the

opera,

from the

swirling

3

me-

ter and

the

sunny

major

second

6-5

(F-E6),

here

the

opening

interval on

"labbro"

p.

97

in the or-

chestral

score).9

The two-bar

phrases

spin

forth

until the approachof the others promptsa tem-

porary

arewell,

sung

to the celebrated

couplet

of

endecasillabi

from

Boccaccio,

"Bocca ba-

ciata

non

perde

ventura,

/

Anzi

rinnova,

come

fa

la luna.

"

The

couplet-a

sort of

private

code

exqui-

sitely

appropriate

o the secret world

of

these

two

childlike lovers-seems to

suggest

that

their encounters

will

proliferate

in a cheerful

and

varied

cycle,

confirmed

by

the second brief

meeting

in

which

their

dalliance takes

on the

metaphor

of a duel. In each

instance,

Verdiin-

terprets

the Boccaccian

couplet

with

poetic

touches that set these lines apartfrom the rest

of the

interlude

(see

pp.

99 and

114 in the

score).

In

the

subdominant

minor,

the

music

darkens

momentarily

the

F-E6

of

the love music

to

F6-

Eb.

The

orchestra

has fallen silent save for the

high

Ab

pedal

in the oboe.WhenNannetta takes

over

this

high

note

on the

first

syllable

of

"luna"

the

strings

restore the

brighter

F-E6

and

we

have heard

a musical

analogue

of the lunar

phases

in

Boccaccio's

simile. The

promise

of

re-

newal

in the

poetic imagery

has become

a

musi-

cal one as

well,

and

the

high

AI

remains

etched

clearly

in our memories until it resonates

once

more in Windsor Park.

These

are the lovers

as

we

instinctively

recall

them

when

thinking

about

Falstaff.

By degrees,

however,

they

soon become

drawn into the in-

trigue

swirling

around them.

Nannetta

stands

watch while

her

mother

entertains

Falstaff in

the scene

in Ford's

house

(II, i),

and

this

time

her

escape

with Fenton

is

less

complete.

Their

quinarican no longer ignorethe turmoil around

them,

and

their self-awareness

grows

as

well:

NANNETTA:

Vien

qua.

FENTON:

Che chiasso

NANNETTA:

Quanti

schiamazzi

Segui

i

mio

passo.

FENTON: Casa

di

pazzi

NANNETTA:

Qui

ognun

delira

Con

vario

error.

Son

pazzi

d'ira.

FENTON:

E

noi

d'amor.

A little

later,

when

they

return to their wonted

"sfere

beate"

and

"sogno

bello

d'Imene,"they

are

betrayedby

a

kiss

and must stand

suddenly

exposed

to the

glaring

reality

of Ford's

unyield-

ing opposition

to their union.

In the first

part

of

this

scene,

Verdi sets the

only

moment

the lovers

sing

alone

(beginning

with the

lines

given

above)

not in

A6

but in

Eb,

a

key strongly

associated

with Ford. The

6-5

ar-

ticulation

is

now

cloaked

in

rising figures

tinged

with

subdued

chromatic

poignancy

over

a dominant

pedal

(ex.

1).

Again,

as

in

the first

act,

their

interchange

de-

scends

to

a

restful

perfect

cadence

(on

"sia bene-

detto," p. 271 in the score),but without the ex-

pansive

opacity

or

high register

of

the

Boccaccianconclusions.

To this

point,

all the lovers' musical

ex-

changes

have

come in

very

stable,

clearly

ex-

pressed

flat

keys,

and

all

have

been in

triple

me-

ter.

Later in

the

scene, however,

in the

grand

ensemble

just

prior

o their

discovery,

the intru-

sive

quarter

rests

in Fenton and Nannetta's

soaring

ine

seem

to

adjust

a

melody

born

to

3

to

the common

time

enforced

by

the others

(pp.

290-94),

a

feature

also

found

in

the

original

ver-

sion of

this

passage.'0

9References

hroughout

are to the

original

Ricordi

publica-

tion

of the full score

(Milan, 1893),

which

has

recently

been

issued

in

a

photo-reprint

(New

York: Dover

Publications,

1980).

'0HansGal

has

reprinted

the earlier version

of this music

(whose

excision

by

Verdi

he

regrets)

rom

the

earliest

edi-

tion

of the

Italian

piano-vocal

score.

"A Deleted

Episode

n

Verdi's

Falstaff,"

Music

Review

2

(1941),

266-72.

See also

Julian

Budden,

The

Operas

of

Verdi,

vol.

III

(New

York,

1981),p.

500.

64

This content downloaded from 198.11.26.126 on Mon, 1 Apr 2013 01:13:43 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


5/9

Allegro

NANNETTA

^

5

S I ' I "' -'

Vien

qua. Quan-

ti

schia- maz- zi

FENTON

Che chiasso

ImIPE

Example

1

In the first scene of act

III,

Nannetta

and

Fen-

ton have no

separate episode

together. Instead,

they

interact

with

Alice

in the

plotting

of the

masquerade,particularlyNannetta, who in the

words of

Vincent

Godefroy, "strays

from

being

'sweet

Ann

Page'

to

assuming

junior

member-

ship

of this female coven."" This is

Boito's do-

ing,

since it was

he

who decided that

Nannetta

and not Mistress

Quickly

should take the

part

of "la

Fata

Regina

delle Fate." When

Alice de-

scribes to

Nannetta her

costume

for

this

role,

her

daughter merges

with her

motivically

for

the

first time

in

lightly echoing

Alice's cadence

(pp.338-39).

The

complicity

of the

young

lovers

in

the

plot

against

Falstaffalso

involves

them in

Alice's

complementary

scheme

to

bring

about

their own happiness. Reality has invaded their

relationship.

The

changes

which this

process

of

"socializa-

tion" works on Fenton

and

Nannetta become

palpable

in the Windsor

Park

scene.

Now,

ex-

cept

for one

fleeting

moment at the end of

Fen-

ton's

sonnet,

each

sings

alone. If

this culminat-

ing

scene

represents,

as

Cone

would

have

it,

their

"escape

into a world of their own mak-

ing,"

why

this

departure

rom their

previous

es-

capes

ai

2? To be

sure,

we

are

invited to think

back to the

lovers'

first moments

together

in

the

opera by

the

evocative orchestral

introduction,

which reasserts

Ab

major and weaves in frag-

ments of the

garden

interludes toward

the end.

And the

sonnet's first

quatrain

begins

with fa-

miliar

features

from the

earlier

love

music-a

broaddominant

pedal

which

cadences

firmly

in

the tonic at the end, harkingback to the tonal

stability

of

the lovers'

exchanges

in

earlier

scenes,

with which it also

shares a

prominent

6-5

(pp.

354-55).12

Yet in other

respects

this

passage

sounds

dif-

ferent from the

earlier music

of

Fenton and

Nannetta.

Allegretto

and

Allegro

have slack-

ened to

Andante assai

sostenuto,

and

triple

me-

ter

has

yielded

to

common

time,

creating

a

more measured and

reflective

atmosphere.

The

second

quatrain

brings

further

changes:

the

harp

enters for the first time in

the

opera,

and

Verdi's

phrasing

of

the

perfectly

wrought

ende-

casillabi soon expands into broaderarches as

the tonic

yields

to

new areas

(notably

E

major,

B

major,

and

D1

minor),

providing

a

tonal

sense of

mission absent

from

the

earlier love

music.

Pitch

organization

is

similarly

more

complex

than before. The

common

tone

G#

(Ab),

to

which

Fenton's line

ascends

again

and

again,

sets

in relief

key

words in

the

text

("labbro,"

"lontana,"

and

"baccai")

and

sets

up

Nannet-

ta's own

A6

an

octave

higher.

Wolfgang

Osthoff has

sought

to

associate

"The Dramatic Genius

of

Verdi:Studies

of

Selected

Operas

(London,

1977),

II,

318.

'2F

and

Eb

are

alreadypresent

in the

hauntingly

spare

Eng-

lish horn

part

here.

Verdi

strengthened

the

role of this mo-

tive in

his

revision

of

the

opening

of the

vocal line so that it

begins

on the

English

horn's

F rather han on

Ab.

See

Gug-

lielmo

Barblan,

"Spunti

rivelatorinella

genesi

del

Falstaff,"

Atti del

1o

congresso

internazionali

di

studi verdiani

(Parma,1969),pp.

16-21.

65

THO

BAU

Fals



6/9

much

of the verbal content

of

Boito's sonnet

with

Shakespearean

models,'3

but such

pur-

ported

ndebtedness is

clearly

a

secondary

ssue.

The extended

conceit

of

antiphonal

song

join-

ing

the

lines of

separated lovers,

whatever

its

source,

is tailored

perfectly

to Fenton and Nan-

netta

in

general,

and more

specifically

to the in-

troduction

of the refrain

passage

in

Db

minor.

The harmlesskisses of the

garden

scene and the

not-so-harmless

smooch behind

the screen

graduate

here to the

imagery

of

song,

to the

more mature interaction

of

utterance and re-

sponse, lending

thereby

new

poetic

meaning

to

the

lovers' "bocca baciata."

Verdi

gives

the

couplet

new

musical

meaning

as well.

Structurally

its

music is no

longer

a

coda-likefarewell

tag

but

a

coming

together

and

fulfillment

of

a

process-or

almost. No

lone

high

A6

in the

oboe,

but

a

returnof

the

harp

with

figurationenergized

into

sextuplets propels

the

piece

from

B

major

into the

"bocca baciata"

music,

now fresh and

new

harmonically

rather

thana

plagal afterthought

n

Ab.

The

sonnet

has

moved,

as none of the lovers'

music

preceding

it,

with

burgeoning

harmonic

richness and

ec-

static vocal

expansion

to the

high 6-5

(BI-AIb)

on

which

Alice arrests the

lovers'

rapture(pp.

360-61).

She arrests our attention as well.

The

beauti-

ful

high

A6

from the

garden

scene

is

left

hanging

at the threshold of

Db major,

and

from

its

heights

we

plunge quickly

to

the

guttural

be-

stialization

of the same

key

as Falstaff

enters

with his antlers and mantle. Alice's interrup-

tion strikes

Hepokoski

as

a welcome trunca-

tion: "This

is

Falstaff,

after

all,

and the de-

mands

of the

plot

have been

delayed

too

long "

(p. 89).

Yet one also feels

a

subliminal

need for

some

kind of resolution to the

exuberant

flight

of the sonnet's

last

tercet,

for

a

fulfillment

of

the

promise

in

the lovers' new

musical and

poetic

rhetoric.

It

does

come,

but

only

after the

rarified and

newly

ripe

love of

Fenton

and

Nannetta

has felt

the

sharp

contrast of the

cynical, carnal,

manip-

ulative

travesty

of love

represented by

Falstaff.

Cone

seems

to

have allowed this contrast

to

po-

larize his

interpretation

of

Nannetta's canzona-

scene

(as many

a

stage

designer

has also

done):

The

music that she

sings

here is not unlike that

which

has characterizeder

throughout,

ut

ighter,

daintier,

ess solid. Her

separation

rom the real

world,

alreadyprepared

n

the

passages

previously

pointed

out,

is now

complete;contrasting,

arthly

counterpoints no longerpresent.She has become

the

fairy

she

is

pretending

o

be,

and

the elves she

summonsare

realelves. The

magical

orchestration

of

the

passage

nsures

he

transformation.

p.

132).

Nannetta's

canzona

is

indeed the

longest,

most

static,

most

completely

closed

number

in

the

opera. Not, however,

because she

is

now

cast

fully

adriftfrom the

reality

around

her,

but

ratherbecause

it

is

ceremony,

because it fulfills

the ideal

toward

which

so much

comedy

tends-acceptance

into

society

through

the

idealizing

ritual

of

matrimony. Matured,

the

lovers

have

opened

their

eyes

and have been

drawn

nto the

unpleasant

realities of the world

they

are

joining,

but now that world

also

opens

itself

to the

enriching

ideals

and

fresh emo-

tional

strength

of the

young.

To

this end Boito transferred he

part

of

the

Queen

of the Fairiesto Nannetta. In the

preced-

ing

scene he

had

described her attire

precisely:

"A

white

gown

coveredin chaste

voile,

circled

with roses."

In

this bridal

guise

she

appeared

at

the end

of Fenton's

sonnet,

and the visual im-

pression

created

there

urges

a

likening

of Alice's

intervention

to the tradition which

abjures

he

groom's seeing his bride on their wedding day

before

her father

has

given

her

away. Now,

in a

tableau

at

once matrimonial

and

maternal,

Boito surrounds

Nannetta with the towns-

childrendecked out

as

little

fairies,

and

fills her

song

with

flowers.

The rest he left

to

Verdi.

Falstaff,

his debase-

ment

complete,

lies

prostrate

on the

ground,

certain

that

to look on the

supernatural

pecta-

cle

of the

spirits

will be death and

damnation

to

him.

A

high

At

in

the first violins

initiates

the

rite.

Nannetta's

exordium

rises to

a

figure

on

"sorgete"

which

recalls

dimly

to our ears Fen-

ton's "rivola" in the sonnet (ex. 2):

NANNETTA

FENTON

4

-

A1

?-

Sor-

ge-

te

ri- vo-

- -

la

Example

2

13"I1l

onetto

nel

Falstaff

di

Verdi,"

in

II

melodramma ita-

liano

dell'ottocento: Studi e

ricerche

per

Massimo

Mila

(Turin,1977), pp.

157-83. Osthoff finds

parallels

n Shake-

speare's

onnets 8 and

128,

and

in

Romeoand

Juliet.

None

of these

goes beyond

verbal

parallels

of the stock

imagery

involved.

66



7/9

The

re-entry

of the

harp-not

heardfrom since

the

last notes of

the

sonnet-strengthens

the

relationship.

Eventually

the introduction

yields

to the

canzona

proper,

scored with

the

most

ineffable

delicacy

and

beauty.

Verdi

put

the

music

in

Nannetta's

3,

but

in

A

major

rather

than

in

Ab

major.

Tonally,

Verdi

thereby

confirms Nan-

netta's entry into womanhood: she is singing,

for the

first

time

in

the

opera,

in

her mother's

key.

Much

has been written

about

the

tonal

plan-

ning

of

Falstaff,

which

more than

any

other

Verdi

opera

elaborates

an

extensive and

quite

consistent

system

of tonal

areas

associated with

the most

important

characters

and

concepts.

I

think

it

not

implausible

that Verdi

sported

with

the

idea

of

using

a basic set

of

key

areas

gener-

ated

by

the

musical

letters

in the name

of

the

character

who

guides

the

opera's

machinations,

Alice,'4

and what

might

be called the

cognate

keys

to

A, C,

and

E-A6, CO,

and

Eb.

It is

clear,

at

all

events,

that A6

and

Eb

are connected with

the lovers

and Ford

respectively,

C and

C#

with

Falstaff,

and

A

and E with

Alice.

A

major

had

first

been

broached

n the

opera

n

I,

i,

when Fal-

staff

introduced

the

subject

of Alice

Ford,

in-

cluding

a double

pun

on

the first letter of

her

name

with

the

key

of

A and

its solmization

"la,"

the

syllable

with

which

he lands

on her

pitch

(ex. 3):

FALSTAFF

:

~

E

quel-

la

/

v

1

Example

3

Alice's

direct

association

with

A

and

E

occurs

most

strikingly

in her

parodistic

reading

of

Fal-

staff's

love letter

in

I,

ii

("Facciamo

il

paio"),

which

sets

out in

A

and

ends

in

E

(pp.

70-73).

In Nannetta's

canzona,

not

just

the

key

of A

major

but

motivic connections

convey

musi-

cally

the

message

that she

is

ready

to

put away

childish

things

and enter her

mother's

world.

Melodically,

she celebrates

her

passage

from

ad-

olescence

to adulthood

by joining

the world

she

shares with Fenton and the world her mother

occupies.

We saw

a

rapprochement

with

her

mother's

world

earlier in

III,

i. The canzona

completes

this

process

and

at the same time

concludes

the

interrupted

sonnet of Fenton.

At the

end of

her

first

stanza Nannetta hints

at

a

phrase

of Alice's

parody

aria

and

joins

it to

a

variant

of

a

luminous

6-5

ornamentation

in

Fenton's

sonnet,

"la

desiata

bocca,"

the

spot

where

the

harp

had burst forth into

sextuplets

(ex. 4).

The second

stanza

brings

these

tentative

connections

into the

open.

This

time Nannetta

quotes

Fenton

confidently

and

almost

literally

(compare

ex. 4 with the

beginning

of

5),

but she

stops

short

of Fenton's closed

cadence,

where-

upon

the

harp

flowers

suddenly

into

sextuplets,

reawakening

memories

of the

interrupted

"bocca

baciata"

tercet

of the sonnet. In the

new,

extended

conclusion

of the second stanza

that

follows,

Nannetta

steps

over into her

mother's

world.

With "words illuminated

in

pure

silver

and

gold"

she now

quotes

directly

from her

mother's

aria,

as

sextuplets

from Fen-

ton's

sonnet

ripple

beneath her

line

(ex.

5).

Not

just

the melodic

quotation

joins

daughter

and

mother, but also the chromatically descending

bass

line-the

"contrasting,

earthly

counter-

point"

Cone

was unable to detect

in

the

fairy

music.

Finally,

Nannetta's

high

sustained

A on

"malie"

("spells")uplifts

the earlier

high

Ab

of

herBoccaccian

couplet

with Fenton.

Later,

n a last

act of filial

submission,

Nan-

netta

steps

backto the brink of

Ab

major

n

en-

treating

her father's

pardon

after the

apotheosis

concluding

the double

wedding.

But Ford side-

steps

Ab

and

good-naturedly

welcomes her and

Fenton

into

his

own

key

of

self-deception,

EI

major

(pp.

435-36),

at

which the whole

gather-

ing shouts "Evviva " Falstaff, who has also

learned his

lesson,

quickly engineers

a return to

his

own

turf,

the universal solvent C

major,

for

the

moral of

the

story-the

celebrated

fugue

"Tutto nel

mondo

a

burlo." The

extent to

which

everyone

is

implicated

in

this

world view

would

appear

to be

considerable, judging

from

140n

11

February

894

Verdiwrote to

Leon

Carvalho:

"take

good

careof

the

role

of

Alice. It

needs first

of

all,

of

course,

a

very

agile,

beautiful

voice,

but at the same

time an actress

with tremendous

temperament.

The role of Alice is

not de-

veloped

at

such

length

as

Falstaff,

but

it is

just

as

important

from

a

scenic

point

of

view. Alice leads

all the

intrigues

of

the

comedy."

Verdi, The Manin His

Letters,

trans.

Edward

Downes

(New

York,

1942),p.

425.

67

THO

BAU

Fals



8/9


9/9

Verdi'suse of

fugue,

in

Cone's words

"probably

the

best formal device available to

indicate

gen-

eral

acceptance

of the

outcome

without loss of

the

individuality

of

each character"

p. 129).

But

the

message

of the

fugue

is

universal

only

in a

sexist universe.

In

the drama

only

the

men are

"gabbati,"

both

by

each

other and

by

the

women. The women oppose the males' lust for

money

and control with

cheerful

good

sense.

They

weave

counterplots only

to

chastise those

exercising manipulative

strategies

threatening

the

social

order which

the

females

respect

and

understand far

more

acutely

than

Cajus,

Ford,

or Falstaff.

Is Fenton

ready

for

conscription

into the

ranks of these

"gabbati,"

just

as

Nannetta has

already-has

long since-joined

the

merry

wives? The

opera,

like the

comedy,

ends

with

the classical conclusion

of

wedding

and

feast.

These rituals

convey

not

only acceptance

into

adult

society

but

also

the

recurringhope

that

the

young

may play

their

new

roles

better than

their elders.

Cone

places

the whole moment of

this abandonment

of adolescenceandinitiation

into adulthood

at the

very

end

of

the drama:

FentonandNannetta "recognizethat even they

must

eventually

come to terms with the

others,

that the claims

of

ordinary society

are

impera-

tive: so

they

too

carry

their

parts

in

the

final

fugue"

(p. 133).

I

think it comes earlier.I

have

tried to show how

verbally, musically,

and

visu-

ally

Boito and

Verdi

dramatize the rites of

pas-

sage

into

the adult world of Fenton and

Nan-

netta,

whose artless attachment

turned to

understanding

"serves to

make the

whole

comedy

fresher and

more

solid."

-

69

THO

BAU

Fals

This content downloaded from 198.11.26.126 on Mon, 1 Apr 2013 01:13:43 AM
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

Bauman Falstaff

Documents

Transcript of Bauman Falstaff