Why is Sir John Falstaff so popular with readers and opera and theatre goers? From an objective viewpoint he is not at all admirable, or even likeable: he is a drunk, a glutton, a would be unscrupulous womanizer, he might have venereal disease, he borrows money from people he despises and, on one level at least, his friendship with the future Henry V is a cynical move to gain advancement. And yet and yet… For one thing, many rogues are loveable; there are plenty of examples in Shakespeare: Captain Parolles in ‘All’s Well That Ends Well’ and Sir Toby Belch in ‘Twelfth Night’ are two examples that come readily to mind. Closer to our own time, Captain Grimes in Evelyn Waugh’s ‘Decline and Fall’ (‘one of the immortals’) and Hector in Alan Bennett’s ‘The History Boys’ are sympathetic enough to allow us to (perhaps) forget or ignore their all too real failings. Bringing us bang up to date, an ex-PM is having his status as loveable rogue (to some at least) tested to the nth degree by the ongoing Covid Enquiry.
Falstaff goes far beyond the above in the likeability stakes, and the reasons are, I’d argue, plain to see. To begin with, Falstaff manages to simultaneously admit his faults (that are manifest and obvious) and acknowledge his virtues (which are, in the main, only discernable to him). Crucially, he does this in some of the most memorable language even Shakespeare wrote. A few examples only must suffice:
Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and therefore more frailty…
A pox on this gout or a gout on this pox, for one or the other plays the rogue with my great toe…
There lives not three men unhanged in England and one of them is fat and grows old…
Peace good Doll, do not speak like a death’s head, bid me not remember mine end…
I am not only witty in myself but the cause that wit is in other men…
What is said about Falstaff is also important. Take for example, this exchange with his page:
FALSTAFF Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water? PAGE He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water, but, for the party that owed it, he might have more diseases than he knew for.
This is amusing in several ways, but a serious point is made – analysis of Falstaff’s urine shows he is seriously ill, so hardly likely to be a key player in Henry V’s new court. The king has known this all along, and these words (when still Prince Hal) to Falstaff are prophetic:
FALSTAFF: No, my good lord, banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins, but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more 495 valiant being as he is old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry’s company, banish not him thy Harry’s company. Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world. PRINCE: I do, I will.
This is poignant and dramatically brilliant but it also illustrates Falstaff’s hubris; when he banishes Falstaff, Henry V will lose someone who has been important to him, but he will not ‘banish all the world’. Falstaff’s place in Hal’s affections is more clearly indicated by the great scene of renunciation outside Westminster Abbey after the King’s Coronation (I make no apology for quoting at length here).
FALSTAFF God save thy Grace, King Hal, my royal Hal. PISTOL The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame! FALSTAFF
God save thee, my sweet boy! KING My Lord Chief Justice, speak to that vain man. CHIEF JUSTICE, ⌜to Falstaff⌝ Have you your wits? Know you what ’tis you speak? FALSTAFF, ⌜to the King⌝ My king, my Jove, I speak to thee, my heart! KING I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers. How ill white hairs becomes a fool and jester. I have long dreamt of such a kind of man, So surfeit-swelled, so old, and so profane; But being awaked, I do despise my dream. Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace; Leave gormandizing. Know the grave doth gape For thee thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest. Presume not that I am the thing I was, For God doth know—so shall the world perceive— That I have turned away my former self. So will I those that kept me company. When thou dost hear I am as I have been, Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast, The tutor and the feeder of my riots. Till then I banish thee, on pain of death, As I have done the rest of my misleaders, Not to come near our person by ten mile. For competence of life I will allow you, That lack of means enforce you not to evils. And, as we hear you do reform yourselves, We will, according to your strengths and qualities, Give you advancement.
The newly crowned king gives a politician’s response – the door is not entirely closed on Falstaff, but the final three lines offer only the slenderest of hopes, and the ‘competence of life’ allowed to him is a far cry from the wealth he was expecting, and against which he borrowed a thousand pounds from Justice Shallow…
The above examples are taken from ‘Henry IV’ (Parts 1 and 2), and, as is well known, the public reaction to Falstaff was so favourable that Shakespeare gave him his very own play in ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’. The problem here is that this is not one of Shakespeare’s better efforts and has the feel of a gag-fest without a huge amount of substance. Ironically, this has attracted composers who have been understandably wary of attempting to delineate the Falstaff of ‘Henry V’ but have grasped the potential of Falstaff as he appears in ‘The Merry Wives’. The most famous, and the best, example is ‘Die Lustige Weiber von Windsor’ by Otto Nicolai, which is great fun, has some lovely tunes and is still very popular in Germany. Other ‘Merry Wives’ operas include ‘Falstaff’ (Salieri), ‘At the Boar’s Head’ (Holst) and ‘Sir John in Love’ (Vaughan Williams). I have a soft spot for this last opera, it has some really delightful music and is a fine vehicle for the singer in the title role – Andrew Shore was a memorable Falstaff in the ENO production of 2006, as indeed he has been in several productions of Verdi’s opera.
And so, finally, to Verdi we come. The genius of his work with Boito is to transplant the spirit of the Henry IV Falstaff into the plot of ‘Merry Wives’. The great moments for Falstaff in the opera are all based on moments from ‘Henry IV’ – the ‘Honour’ monologue from Act 1 which manages to be both humorous and noble, ‘Quand’ ero paggio’ from Act 2, a delightful miniature where Falstaff remembers his youth as a slim and lively page to the Duke of Norfolk, and the great ‘Mondo ladro’ from Act 3, which reaches Shakespearian levels of pathos, where Falstaff, having been dumped into the Thames with a basketful of dirty washing, reflects on the cruelty of the world and his decline into old age. Typically, he is able to dispel gloom through alcohol, and his soliloquy ends with Falstaff praising, to wonderful effect, the benefits of wine.
‘Falstaff’ is, after all, a comedy and, by definition, Falstaff cannot be allowed to come to a bad end, but, if a comedy is a series of confusions which end happily and a tragedy is a series of confusions which end badly, then Verdi’s Falstaff still treads a fine line between the two, and the final, apparently joyful fugue ‘Tutto nel mondo e burla.’ still gives the director licence to provide an enigmatic ending – does Falstaff exit happily with the rest of the company, or is he left alone on stage? The best solution I’ve seen is Falstaff left alone, but only momentarily, before being rescued by his faithful page and taken to enjoy the general rejoicing.
The character of Falstaff apart, the ‘Merry Wives’ plot allows Verdi to flesh out a number of other vivid characters. Ford, with his wrong-headed but powerful ‘Jealousy’ monologue becomes for a moment a mini Iago, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page are living, breathing middle aged women, feisty and sexy, Mistress Quickly a comic but formidable country cousin to Erda or Fricka, and Fenton and Nannetta, the fresh voiced, innocent spirits who off-set a surfeit of middle-aged cynicism (I should briefly mention here that I heard the young Margaret Price sing Nanetta with WNO in 1969 at The New Theatre Cardiff – her pianissimo top A flat in the duet with Fenton is one of the most beautiful sounds I have heard issue from a human throat).
As a final paragraph I’d like to offer my memories two great baritones singing the role of Falstaff. Growing up in Cardiff in the 1960s, I had the good fortune to see many memorable productions by Welsh National Opera at The New Theatre; two of the most notable performances were of Falstaff. In 1969 Geraint Evans sang the title role and was also director – this was when Margaret Price sang her unforgettable Nannetta, and in 1971, in a quite extraordinary operatic coup, the great Italian baritone, Tito Gobbi, came to Cardiff to sing his first and only opera in Wales. Gobbi came to Cardiff because the WNO Music Director, James Lockhart had worked with him at Covent Garden and Gobbi sang in ‘Falstaff’ as a personal favour for a musician he very much admired. Even as a callow teenager I realised that seeing two great Falstaffs in relatively quick succession was an experience I’d never forget, and so it has proved. It would be invidious to offer up too many comparisons, so I’ll merely remark that Evans’ voice still seems to me the ideal instrument for Falstaff – put simplistically, he sounds FAT, and his dramatic portrayal was wonderfully charismatic. Gobbi with his leaner, silvery baritone, perhaps made more of the text – he was Italian after all – and his performance was unforgettable. They were both magnificent and I was blessed in that dawn to be alive.
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