 
Three Hungarians
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Falstaff's Fugue
Wolfgang Stähr on Giuseppe Verdi's Love for the Fugue
Falstaff is being co-produced with the Easter Festival in an eagerly awaited staging by the English director Declan Donnellan; the summer premiere takes place on 27 July 2001.
Declan Donnellan about Falstaff
"It is the most amusing masterpiece by an old man at the end of
a long career about an old man at the end of a long career. The problem
with age is that it proves to be a terrible surprise and is not how one
imagined it to be. It gives warmth, light and love but also anger, fear
and darkness. Humour frequently arises from an intense, feverish rage
because we are no longer so attractive and because we will die, and we
project all this onto someone of whom we can, with a clear conscience,
make fun. The wonderful thing about it is that in this case we see, laugh
and learn. There is redemption and yet it remains mysterious. As always
with outstanding art, it is not so much a question of understanding but
that something magnificent is presented to us."
Verdi takes his leave of the stage with a fugue
In the winter of 1872/73 Verdi was staying in a hotel in Naples and was
bored because due to the indisposition of his primadonna Teresa Stolz
he was condemned to idleness. Seeking diversion he found the most exquisite
way of passing time. He composed a string quartet. As a finale he created
an ingenious and light "scherzo fugue", modelled on Haydn's
Quartet in C major, op. 20, number 2 - Verdi kept the string quartets
of the Viennese classical composers on a shelf above his bed. Only a few
months later he composed the idealistic double fugue of the Sanctus for
his Messa da Requiem. Even the oldest part of this work, the Libera me,
culminates in a choral fugue, arrogantly described by Hans von Bülow,
as being "a diligent piece of work, despite many puerile platitudes
and ugliness, and something that would come as a great surprise for many
a German musician." Eighteen years later Bülow sent a rueful
letter of apology to the maestro for this "injustice" and "intolerance"
of a blinded Wagnerian. However, prejudice remained virulent. Ernst Krenek
recalled that in his youth Verdi was regarded merely as "a skilful
producer of hurdy-gurdy melodies, good enough for the spaghetti-eaters
'down there' but too 'banal' for our progressive and demanding natures."
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| Falstaff, 2001, Photo: Ruth Walz |
A fool's song in the strict form of the fugue
And it was precisely with a fugue that "good old Verdi" took
his leave of the world of the stage. "A chorus, and we end the scene"
he has his Falstaff sing, who introduces the theme for the finale of the
commedia lirica named after him. "I enjoy writing fugues!" wrote
Verdi at the age of 75 to his librettist Arrigo Boito. "Yes, sir:
a fugue - and indeed a comic fugue that could be just right for Falstaff!"
Boito had replied enthusiastically, "A burlesque fugue is precisely
what we need; it won't be difficult to find the right place for it. The
performances of art are there for art to perform."
"What does a poem consist of?" was a question posed in 1977
in an anthology of contemporary poets. What does a fugue consist of, might
be the question posed in reference to this book title.
A battle, a scherzo, a sanctus - and now in Falstaff, the derisive lesson-teaching
that man is a buffoon, someone who's been cheated and deceived. He who
laughs last, laughs longest is the conclusion of the comedy, because,
"Tutto nel mondo è burla" - "All the world's a joke".
Verdi put the words of this fool's song into the strict and absolutely
reasonable form of the fugue. Is this also just a joke or a game? Or is
it more than that?
Similarly in Capriccio Richard Strauss set a heated quarrel as a fugue,
and Richard Wagner even made use of the art of counterpoint in his Meistersänger
for the brawl on a Midsummer's Eve in Nuremberg. The same Wagner had Beethoven's
'Hammerklavier' sonata with its elemental fuga a tre voci performed in
his Villa Wahnfried in Bayreuth and remarked, full of admiration, "It
is as if one had been led into the workshop of the essence of all things,
as if one could see everything stirring and moving in the heart of the
world". And he came to the conclusion, "Anyone capable of transforming
oneself would here possess the key to the mystery of the world."
The fugue as an allegory of a spiritual order
If, behind the idea of anchoring a dispute, a brawl, a farce in the timeless
law of a fugue, more is concealed than merely intellectual enjoyment of
a paradox, why therefore should this be valid only for Wagner and Strauss
but not for Verdi? In the obvious contradiction between word and sound,
action and music, folly and fugue is revealed the mystery, the deeper
wisdom of the work of art that is even able to transform violence, ugliness
and banality into beauty. The fugue, even the "comic fugue"
at the end of Falstaff resounds as an allegory of an imperturbable, unalterable
spiritual order: as the echo of the "eternal harmony" that will
never be able to turn a violent small-minded person or a drunken aristocrat
into something they are not.
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| Declan Donnellan
was born in 1953 in England and spent his childhood in the west of
Ireland. He studied English and law at the University of Cambridge
and started his career in law in 1979. In 1981 Donnellan and the stage designer Nick Ormerod founded "Cheek by Jowl", regarded as one of the most renowned theatre companies. Apart from only a few exceptions Donnellan directed all the productions. He presented English works and rarely performed European classics such as Racine's Andromache, Ostrovsky's A Family Affair, Lessing's Sarah and The Cid by Corneille. In 1989 Donnellan was appointed co-director of the Royal National Theatre; in 1997 he was the first British stage director to be invited to the Maly Theatre in St. Petersburg, where he directed A Winter's Tale in Russian. Peter Brook described Declan Donnellan's work as "a feast for the spirit" |
Fugal Folly in a World out of Joint
Stray Thoughts on the Comedy of Verdi’s “Falstaff”
Giuseppe Verdi - Falstaff
Sung in Italian with supertitles in German and English
Conductor .......... Lorin Maazel
Director .......... Declan Donnellan
Stage and costume design .......... Nick Ormerod
Lighting .......... Judith Greenwood
Chorus master .......... Donald Palumbo
Sir John Falstaff .......... Bryn Terfel
Ford .......... Dwayne Croft
Fenton .......... Massimo Giordano
Dottore Cajus .......... Enrico Facini
Bardolfo .......... Anthony Mee
Pistola .......... Anatoli Kotscherga
Mrs Alice Ford .......... Carmela Remigio
Nanetta Heidi .......... Grant Murphy
Mrs Quickly .......... Larissa Diadkova
Mrs Meg Page .......... Stella Doufexis
Vienna Philharmonic
Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus
Grosses Festspielhaus
New production:
Premiere on 27 July 2001
30 July, 5, 8, 13 and 17 August 2001
Performances start at 7. 30 p.m.
Tickets are still available for the performances on 30 July and
8 August in the categories
ATS 3,600 and 4,600, and on
8 August also in the categories
ATS 2,800 on 5 August for
ATS 2,800 and 3,600.