Paris had the work at the Opéra Comique in April 1894, when the performance was rendered more interesting by the presence of the composer himself, who received a tribute of enthusiastic applause from a crowded house containing two thousand of the most notable representatives of the Parisian world. The scene was a very striking one when Verdi, in his eighty-first year, yet carrying his age exceedingly well, was led forward between Victor Maurel and Mlle. Delna, the two principal interpreters of this version of the Merry Wives of Windsor.
In May 1894, Falstaff was given for the first time in London, at Covent Garden, with the Scala troupe of artists, the occasion furnishing the musical event of the season. The performance was witnessed by a brilliant audience, royalty being represented by the Prince of Wales, and the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and her daughter, while the general gathering included nearly all the personages of "light and leading" in the London musical world. The comic masterpiece was a complete and unqualified success.
Signor Mancinelli conducted, and the principal rôles were filled by Signorine Kitzu (Meg), Giulia Ravogli (Dame Quickly), Olga Olghina (Nanetta), and Zilli (Alice); Signor Pessina represented an excellent fat knight (the part created by M. Maurel in Milan), and Signori Pellegalli-Rosetti, Arimondi, Armandi, and Pini-Corsi, were capital as Bardolph, Pistol, and Dr. Caius, and Ford, respectively. The reception of the opera, from beginning to end, was most enthusiastic, and time after time the curtain descended amid tumultuous applause, and the calling forward of the singers.
Where a work is replete with splendid points and brilliant episodes—uniform in its excellence from opening to close—it is unnecessary to particularise one number more than another. Yet it is well to record the most "taking" pieces, even in a composition so consistently beautiful, both in libretto and in music, as Falstaff admittedly is. The first act opens in the interior of the Garter Inn, and amid the animated scene which follows, there is some excellent music to the doings of Bardolph, Pistol, and Dr. Caius. The canonic "Amen" is amusing, and Sir John's soliloquy upon "honour," gives the baritone a capital chance of displaying his powers. Another attractive number, where all is so attractive, is the chattering quartet of women, at the end of the first act. With the second act, we still are in the Garter hostelry—and the fun thickens. Mrs. Quickly and Ford, in turn, "interview" Falstaff, and here, as in the scene in Ford's house, and the search for the missing knight, the music is of the liveliest, happiest character. The fat knight's solo, "When I was page to the Duke of Norfolk, slender of figure," the love duet, and Anne Page's song in the forest scene are further superlatively beautiful instances among many in this richly-gemmed work. The opera has been given in Milan, Berlin, Vienna, Paris, and London—here several times, as recently as the last season—and whenever performed, the sparkling numbers enumerated are always encored, and re-demanded.
Critically regarded, the music is unquestionably the best that Verdi has written. Its leading features are its freshness, spontaneity, irresistible humour, and youthfulness; yet, its finished character, the carefully conceived and highly wrought detail, involving much technical skill and learning, bespeak unmistakably the ripened master-mind. What a reply, too, it is to all the early critical opposition which made out that there was nothing in Verdi beyond the power of adapting his countrymen's melodic commonplaces, and stringing them together suitably for a speedy oblivion!
"The age of miracles is supposed to be past, but those who declare it so would do well to consider the miracle of Verdi's persistent artistic vitality.... When count is taken of the quality as well as of the quantity of Verdi's achievements, these must be confessed well-nigh miraculous. The list of his operas is an epitome, one might say, of the development of operatic music. Trace the steady march of his genius from the period of I Lombardi to Otello, remember the successive stages typified by Trovatore, Ernani, Rigoletto, Aïda,—each a masterpiece after its kind,—and you find yourself in the presence of a man who has never swerved from the search after the highest ideal. Between I Lombardi and Otello there is a gap which it might seem no one man could span. And yet, however different the methods of expression which Verdi has chosen in each stage of his development, the form has always been inevitable, and the man's personality is as apparent and as potent in one as in the other. Aïda seemed likely to be his last work; but with Otello came a new apocalypse. He had not been afraid to modify his method, that it might fit his subject more completely, and there was not wanting those who (wrongly) saw in it a confession of conversion to the Wagnerian gospel. No one believed that the octogenarian composer would find anything fresh to say or any fresh way of saying it. The miracle has been repeated, for in Falstaff, produced at Milan on the 9th inst., we have a work which proclaims itself the expression of a phase of Verdi's nature quite unguessed at. The antiquaries of music, who care less to enjoy a work than to classify it, will not find the task in the case of Falstaff easy, for Falstaff does not fall readily into any of the required classes. It belongs to no school, not even to that of Verdi himself, for there was little in any of his other operas to show that he possessed the supreme gift of humour, though indeed we might have remembered that so exquisite a sense of proportion as his never goes unaccompanied with humour, and is dependent on it for perfection."[66]
Following this fulsome preamble is a highly flattering detailed account of Verdi's music to Falstaff—which stands in strange contrast to much that we have read of the maestro in the pages of the Athenæum. Such phrases as the following, to be found in the notice, must indeed have proved balm to Verdi after his years of castigation at the hands of this journal:—
"Petulant contempt" (referring to the part where Falstaff harangues his servants on the point of honour) "is no easy thing to express in music, but here the difficulty is overcome without effort, and we are launched, so to say, on that sparkling sea of humour which has yet had but few successful navigators. The scene ends as Falstaff chases his chivalrous servants from the room.... Of the music it is enough to say that the ensemble of the nine voices is treated with consummate skill, and that the chattering quartet in E major for the women's voices, unaccompanied, is one of the most delightful passages in the whole score.... The great scene in which Falstaff is obliged to take refuge in the buck-basket is handled with immense skill by librettist and composer alike. Putting aside Wagner's treatment of the street scene in Die Meistersinger, there is nothing in comic music to be set beside the ensemble of this (second) act, in which Verdi has brought together with magnificent skill such incongruous elements as the lovers behind the screen, etc.... In the music to this" (the last act) "the highest level is reached: poetry, grace, and humour are balanced and combined with marvellous delicacy. The whole scene is a triumph; in the matter of sheer beauty of form Mozart himself could not have surpassed it.... The charm that comes of absolute simplicity is the chief; and the presence of humour, now broadly laughing and now quaintly fantastic, need not be further insisted on. The manner is not less simple than the matter. There is nothing approaching the use of representative themes; and though no resource of the modern orchestra is left untried, the outlines of the music are as clear, its colouring as pure, as is a picture by Perugino."[67]
The score of Falstaff is something of an alpha and omega of a musical life—there is the young and the old, the youth and the philosopher present and apparent, in rare harmonious weaving. The symmetry of the whole is striking indeed; while the clever construction throughout shows not merely the educated, but also the painstaking composer. All the music is not of such superlative grace as that delicious scene where the animated quartet of merry wives are reading Falstaff's love-letters; or the duet for Falstaff and Ford—the orchestration of which is so perfect, that even the merry jingling that accompanies Ford's rattling of the gold bag has not been missed. Such a standard of artistic excellence could not be maintained throughout any opera by any master; nevertheless, not a weak or unworthy number can be pointed to throughout the score. Even the penultimate tableau preceding the fugue finale of the opera—justly declared to be somewhat poor—suffers more than would otherwise be the case by comparison with the uniformly high order of the other music in the opera.
It is one of the most difficult tasks which even a master-musician can have set him to write comic music that shall be at once original and humorous. Yet, here Verdi succeeded at his first attempt. True, he has left Falstaff, and the style thereof, until the eve of his artistic career; yet, what a crowning work it stands! Lyric tragedy occupied the master's mind for nearly the whole of his long life, until it appeared almost that he could write nothing else but lyric tragedy. Then to show that this was otherwise, he went to comedy—he composed one comic opera. What an example it is! Its proportions are colossal: its comedy is equal to Mozart; its technique, ingenuity, and construction rival Wagner. No grander piece of work could crown the master's career. Through Verdi, national opera as made in Italy stands to-day on as high ground as the lyric drama—the grand opera of France and Germany. England, unfortunately, cannot yet be considered in the matter.