I've listened to Verdi's *Falstaff* several times on recordings and have
attended a live performance twice, the second time yesterday (Sunday)
afternoon.

After each live performance, I've wondered why the opera is considered such
a masterpiece and it's only the recordings that restore my admiration for
Verdi's last opera.  (It's still not my favorite; that would be *Otello*,
followed in no particular order by *Don Carlo*, *Rigoletto*, *Traviata*
and *Trovatore*.)

*Falstaff* is a much more difficult opera, both to perform and to listen
to.  Memorable arias of the sort we associate w/ the earlier operas are
absent, although not totally:  there's Falstaff's dissertation on "honor"
(borrowed from Shakespeare's *Henry IV, Part I* rather than from *Merry
Wives of Windsor*) and Ford's on wives' fidelity ("I would entrust my beer
to a German, all my table to a gluttonous Dutchman, my brandy bottle to
a Turk, rather than my wife to herself.").  And there are a few effective
little themes like the salutations exchanged by the young lovers ("Bocca
bacciata non perde ventura," followed by "Anzi rinnova come fa la luna.")
and Mistress Quickly's ostensibly obsequious "Reverenza" to Falstaff, the
irony of which he never suspects.

But essentially, it's an opera of ensembles, of groups of characters, all
w/ different axes to grind, unburdening themselves at the same time...to
marvelous musical effect, when done right, as on my Karajan-VPO, Taddei,
Panerai, Araiza (Philips 412 263-2) and Toscanini-NBC (RCA LP AT 301/1-3)
recordings and sounding distressingly disorganized when not.  Thus, in the
second scene, the men are on one side singing their carefully laid plot
to entrap Falstaff in duple time, while the ladies are on the other side
singing in triple, while in the middle, Fenton, the tenor, to whom nobody
is paying attention, is declaiming his feelings for Nanetta.  It's actually
a tour de force that few besides Verdi could bring off, one such being
Wagner.  Thus, in the first act of *Die Meistersinger*, the premiere of
which Verdi had just attended before writing this scene, Walther, in the
middle, full of untrained, undisciplined enthusiasm, sings his qualifying
song to the horror of the masters, who are faulting it from start to finish
in duple on one side, while the apprentices (sopranos) are having a great
laugh in triple time on the other side.

Alas, when these scenes aren't performed to the peak of perfection, they
lose their impact even w/ purportedly explanatory surtitles I'm not saying
that my wife and I didn't enjoy yesterday's performance.  Yes she did
tend to nod off, especially in the first scene but responded well to the
slapstick, the gestures and the pantomime, and even she was roused by
the ensemble comprising the opera's finale ("Tutto nel mondo e burla.").
I enjoyed the performance, extrapolating, where necessary, from the
performance I was hearing to the performances I was recalling.  Perhaps
in a more conventional opera the performers could have shown themselves
to better advantage.

Yesterday's performance was at the Lissner Auditorium of the George
Washington University in Washington, which, before the Kennedy Center was
built, was the auditorium of choice for opera and ballet in this city.  The
hall has no bad seats, none have obstructed vision, and on this second of
two performance was almost completely sold out.  (One wonders why, in a
large city where opera routinely sells out, whether in the regular season
or for performance like this one, neither of the classical music stations
deem it worth while broadcast the Saturday matinee performances of the
New York Metropolitan performance any more.) It was presented by Opera
International, which sponsors operas (one a year) to give young artists
the opportunity to sing and perform in lead roles alongside established
artists.  It was produced by Muriel Hom, the founder of Opera
International, and co-produced by Taiwan-born Mei-jon Hung.  Ms.  Hom is
vice president of the Organization of Chinese American Women, and a friend
who, like my wife, is a member of that organization, while coincidentally
at the same time a frequent attendee at a friend's monthly get together
for playing recordings of classical music, had organized the afternoon
for us and several other acquaintances of hers.  Falstaff was sung by Gary
Simpson; Fenton, by Barton Green; Ford, by Brent Ellis; Dr.  Caius, by Joel
Sorensen; Bardolph, by Patrick Toomey; Pistol, by Stephan Kirchgraber, Mrs.
Alice Ford, by Hai-bo Bai; Nannetta, by Elizabeth Kluegel; Mrs.  Meg Page,
by Kathryn Honan-Carter; Dame Quickly, by Sondra Kelly; and Robin
(Falstaff's page, a silent part), by Thomas Dahlquist.  The opera was
conducted by Edward Roberts.

Walter Meyer