The first part of the third act opens with, for Verdi, quite a long introduction, agitato in nature, on the theme that interrupts Falstaff's love-making in the previous act. The scene is the exterior of the Garter Inn. Falstaff is alone, and sings his famous soliloquy on the wicked, treacherous world. He calls for wine, drinks deeply, and begins to feel better. He mixes the sack with the Thames water he has swallowed, and sings, "How sweet it is to drink good wine while basking in the sunshine." Mistress Quickly comes on, and makes the appointment for Herne's oak at midnight. She begins the story of Herne the Hunter very impressively, and Mistress Page finishes it.
The next and last scene takes place a little before midnight, at the oak in Windsor Park. Anne Page and Fenton open with a love-duet, and as the bell strikes twelve Sir John enters wearing a pair of antlers. After a short scene with Mistress Page, Anne Page is heard as Fairy Queen summoning her wood nymphs, dryads, and goblins. Falstaff falls on his face, and the fairies enter. There is a long and beautiful sort of choral ballet, in which Falstaff is badly treated by everyone, especially by Bardolph. In the hubbub Dr Caius elopes with Bardolph disguised as Anne Page, and Fenton and Anne manage to get Ford's consent to their marriage. Then comes the great moment of all. All parties are reconciled; Ford invites everyone to carouse at his house, and Sir John Falstaff leads off with the subject of the great choral fugue that forms the finale. The words begin, "Jesting is man's vocation," etc. Fenton takes the answer, then Dame Quickly, then Mistress Ford. At first the orchestration is very light, but as the rest join in it grows heavier. Mistress Page then enters with the subject, followed by Sweet Anne in stretto, Pistol meanwhile starting with the counter-subject, closely followed by Ford, with Dr Caius in stretto. It would take too long to describe the ramifications of this, as Browning says of another, "mountainous fugue," but it is one of the most superb pieces of vocal fugal writing extant, and makes one of the finest endings to an opera the brain of man has ever conceived.
The idea of having a great fugue in eight and ten parts, with a full chorus and orchestra, quite independent of the solo parts, to finish a comic opera was a stroke of genius that could only have occurred to a supreme mind, and could only have been carried out by one of the great musical and dramatic geniuses of the world. It is extraordinarily successful, and its daring is gloriously vindicated. Let those lovers of musical comedy, ragtime, and sentimental ballads who sneer at fugue, counterpoint, form, and technique hear this, and wonder. It does not sound very complicated or difficult, but really it is quite as complex as the finale of Mozart's "Jupiter" Symphony, the "Cum Sancto Spiritu" from Bach's B minor Mass, or the great fugato finale from the third act of Wagner's Meistersinger. Verdi and Mozart make the numbers I have spoken of sound simple and almost easy; Bach and Wagner sound as difficult as they are, and all are equally difficult at bedrock.
I have written a great deal on this work, though no number of pages of mine could do any kind of justice to it; but if I have helped one reader to a little fuller understanding of this great comic opera I shall have "acquired grace," and, anyhow, that is something.
In 1856, at the Lyric, Paris, Adolphe Adam produced his one-act comic opera Falstaffe, with a libretto by MM. Saint Georges and Leunen. He was born in Paris in 1803, and was a pupil of Boieldieu at the Conservatoire. The music is very light and fairly melodious, but quite unambitious, and has been described by a French musical critic, very justly, as mediocre. There is a valse in it which was popular for a time, and a few catchy numbers, but the critic was right—mediocre is the word.
There is a song by J. L. Hatton entitled "Falstaff's Song: Give me a cup of sack, boy." But I cannot find the words in my edition of Shakespeare's plays and poems. It begins:
A full, flowing cup of old sack give me, boy;
For sack clears the head, clears the heart.
I don't think the words are Shakespeare's, in spite of the printed title-page before me. The music is in the composer's well-known "Simon the Cellarer" style; only, unfortunately, the tune is not so good. The words get sillier as the song continues, so that if I had been the boy I should have given the singer prussic acid instead of the sack he so repeatedly calls for.