Editing Falstaff (opera) (section)

==Performance history==
[[File:Verdi-at-Falstaff-rehearsal-1894.jpg|thumb|alt= nine drawings of elderly bearded man gesticulating or sitting|Verdi directing the rehearsals of ''Falstaff'']]

===Premieres===
The first performance of ''Falstaff'' was at [[La Scala]] in Milan on 9 February 1893, nearly six years after Verdi's previous premiere. For the first night, official ticket prices were thirty times greater than usual.<ref name=h55 />{{refn|Reserved seats on the ''platea'' (main floor) were raised from 5 lire to 150 lire, with similar increases in other parts of the house.<ref name=h55/>|group= n}} Royalty, aristocracy, critics and leading figures from the arts all over Europe were present.<ref name=h55>Hepokoski, pp. 55–56</ref> The performance was a huge success under the baton of [[Edoardo Mascheroni]]; numbers were encored, and at the end the applause for Verdi and the cast lasted an hour.{{refn|Although most of the music is [[through-composed]], with no obvious breaks where an encore could be taken, Verdi had agreed in advance that the women's quartet "Quell'otre! quel tino!" and Falstaff's brief song "Quand'ero paggio" could be encored. Hepokoski speculates that the conductor may have slowed and then briefly stopped the music to allow the audience to applaud.<ref name=h126>Hepokoski, pp. 126–127</ref> At later performances Verdi allowed other sections of the score to be encored, including Nannetta's "Sul fil d'un soffio etesio".<ref name=h126 />|group=n}} That was followed by a tumultuous welcome when the composer, his wife and Boito arrived at the Grand Hotel de Milan.<ref name=h55 />

Over the next two months the work was given twenty-two performances in Milan and then taken by the original company, led by Maurel, to Genoa, Rome, Venice, Trieste, Vienna and, without Maurel, to Berlin.<ref>Hepokoski, p. 56</ref> Verdi and his wife left Milan on 2 March; Ricordi encouraged the composer to go to the planned Rome performance of 14 April, to maintain the momentum and excitement that the opera had generated. The Verdis, along with Boito and Giulio Ricordi, attended together with [[King Umberto I]] and other major royal and political figures of the day. The king introduced Verdi to the audience from the Royal Box to great acclaim, "a national recognition and apotheosis of Verdi that had never been tendered him before", notes Phillips-Matz.<ref>Phillips-Matz, pp. 717–720</ref>
[[File:Adolfo Hohenstein - Poster for first French production of Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff.jpg|thumb|Poster for the Paris première of 1894, by [[Adolfo Hohenstein]].]]
During these early performances Verdi made substantial changes to the score. For some of these he altered his manuscript, but for others musicologists have had to rely on the numerous full and piano scores put out by Ricordi.<ref name=h83 /> Further changes were made for the Paris premiere in 1894, which are also inadequately documented. Ricordi attempted to keep up with the changes, issuing new edition after new edition, but the orchestral and piano scores were often mutually contradictory.<ref name=h83 /> The Verdi scholar James Hepokoski considers that a definitive score of the opera is impossible, leaving companies and conductors to choose between a variety of options.<ref name=h83>Hepokoski, p. 83</ref> In a 2013 study Philip Gossett disagrees, believing that the autograph is essentially a reliable source, augmented by contemporary Ricordi editions for the few passages that Verdi omitted to amend in his own score.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Gossett|first=Philip|author-link=Philip Gossett|jstor=10.1525/jams.2013.66.1.103|title=Some Thoughts on the Use of Autograph Manuscripts in Editing the Works of Verdi and Puccini|journal=[[Journal of the American Musicological Society]]|date=Spring 2013|volume=66 |issue=1 |pages=103–128}} {{subscription required}}</ref>

The first performances outside the Kingdom of Italy were in [[Trieste]] and Vienna, in May 1893.<ref name=h129 /> The work was given in the Americas and across Europe. The Berlin premiere of 1893 so excited [[Ferruccio Busoni]] that he drafted a letter to Verdi, in which he addressed him as "Italy's leading composer" and "one of the noblest persons of our time", and in which he explained that "''Falstaff'' provoked in me such a revolution of spirit that I can&nbsp;... date [to the experience] the beginning of a new epoch in my artistic life."<ref>Beaumont (1987), pp. 53–54.</ref> [[Antonio Scotti]] played the title role in [[Buenos Aires]] in July 1893; [[Gustav Mahler]] conducted the opera in [[Hamburg]] in January 1894; a Russian translation was presented in St Petersburg in the same month.<ref name=h76 /> Paris was regarded by many as the operatic capital of Europe, and for the production there in April 1894 Boito, who was fluent in French, made his own translation with the help of the Parisian poet Paul Solanges.<ref name=h76>Hepokoski, pp. 76–77</ref> This translation, approved by Verdi, is quite free in its rendering of Boito's original Italian text. Boito was content to delegate the English and German translations to [[William Beatty-Kingston]] and [[Max Kalbeck]] respectively.<ref name=h76 /> The London premiere, sung in Italian, was at Covent Garden on 19 May 1894. The conductor was [[Luigi Mancinelli]], and Zilli and Pini Corsi repeated their original roles. Falstaff was sung by Arturo Pessina; Maurel played the role at Covent Garden the following season.<ref>"Performance History", programme booklet, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 6 December 1999, p. 43</ref> On 4 February 1895 the work was first presented at the [[Metropolitan Opera]], New York;<ref name=k461>Kimbell, p. 461</ref> Mancinelli conducted and the cast included Maurel as Falstaff, [[Emma Eames]] as Alice, [[Zélie de Lussan]] as Nannetta and [[Sofia Scalchi]] as Mistress Quickly.<ref>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1895/02/05/106078424.pdf "Verdi's great ''Falstaff''], ''The New York Times'', 5 February 1895</ref>

===Neglect===
[[File:Bohumil Benoni jako Falstaff 1894 Langhans.png|thumb|upright|Bohumil Benoni as Falstaff, 1894]]
After the initial excitement, audiences quickly diminished. Operagoers were nonplussed by the absence of big traditional arias and choruses. A contemporary critic summed it up: "'Is this our Verdi?' they asked themselves. 'But where is the ''motive''; where are the broad melodies&nbsp;... where are the usual ''ensembles''; the ''finales''?'"<ref name=h129>Hepokoski, p. 129</ref> By the time of Verdi's death in 1901 the work had fallen out of the international repertoire, though [[Gustav Mahler]], an admirer of Verdi, led a production of "exceptional quality" in 1904 at the Vienna Court Opera.<ref>Henry-Louis de La Grange. Gustav Mahler Vol. 2 Vienna: The Years of Challenge (1897–1904). p. 679</ref> The rising young conductor [[Arturo Toscanini]] was a strong advocate of the work, and did much to save it from neglect. As musical director of La Scala (from 1898) and the Metropolitan Opera (from 1908), he programmed ''Falstaff'' from the start of his tenure. [[Richard Aldrich (music critic)|Richard Aldrich]], music critic of ''[[The New York Times]]'', wrote that Toscanini's revival "ought to be marked in red letters in the record of the season. ''Falstaff'', which was first produced here on February 4, 1895, has not been given since the following season, and was heard in these two seasons only half a dozen times in all."<ref name=aldrich>[[Richard Aldrich (music critic)|Aldrich, Richard]]. [https://www.nytimes.com/1909/03/07/archives/to-be-given-at-a-special-saturday-night-performance-at-the.html "To be Given at a Special Saturday Night Performance at the Metropolitan"], ''[[The New York Times]]'', 7 March 1909</ref> Aldrich added that though the general public might have had difficulty with the work, "to connoisseurs it was an unending delight".<ref name=aldrich />

In Britain, as in continental Europe and the US, the work fell out of the repertoire. [[Sir Thomas Beecham]] revived it in 1919, and recalling in his memoirs that the public had stayed away he commented:
{{blockquote|I have often been asked why I think ''Falstaff'' is not more of a box-office attraction, and I do not think the answer is far to seek. Let it be admitted that there are fragments of melody as exquisite and haunting as anything that Verdi has written elsewhere, such as the duet of Nanetta and Fenton in the first act and the song of Fenton at the beginning of the final scene, which have something of the lingering beauty of an Indian summer. But in comparison with every other work of the composer, it is wanting in tunes of a broad and impressive character, and one or two of the type of "O Mia Regina", "Ritorna Vincitor", or "Ora per sempre addio" might have helped the situation.<ref>Beecham, p. 178</ref>|}}

Toscanini recognised that this was the view of many, but he believed the work to be Verdi's greatest opera; he said, "I believe it will take years and years before the general public understand this masterpiece, but when they really know it they will run to hear it like they do now for ''Rigoletto'' and ''La traviata''."<ref name=civetta>Civetta, Chapter 3: "Falstaff" section.</ref>

===Re-emergence===
[[File:Toscanini 8.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=head and shoulder shot of a man in a suit with moustache|The conductor [[Arturo Toscanini]], who strove to return ''Falstaff'' to the regular repertory]]
Toscanini returned to La Scala in 1921 and remained in charge there until 1929, presenting ''Falstaff'' in every season. He took the work to Germany and Austria in the late 1920s and the 1930s, conducting it in Vienna, Berlin and at three successive [[Salzburg Festival]]s. Among those inspired by Toscanini's performances were [[Herbert von Karajan]] and [[Georg Solti]], who were among his ''[[répétiteur]]s'' at Salzburg. Toscanini's younger colleague [[Tullio Serafin]] continued to present the work in Germany and Austria after Toscanini refused to perform there because of his loathing of the Nazi regime.<ref name=o151>Osborne, pp. 150–151</ref>

When Karajan was in a position to do so he added ''Falstaff'' to the repertoire of his opera company at [[Aachen]] in 1941,<ref name=o151 /> and he remained a proponent of the work for the rest of his career, presenting it frequently in Vienna, Salzburg and elsewhere, and making audio and video recordings of it.<ref>Osborne, pp. 406, 409, 420, 655 and 815.</ref> Solti also became closely associated with ''Falstaff'', as did [[Carlo Maria Giulini]]; they both conducted many performances of the work in mainland Europe, Britain and the US and made several recordings.<ref>Solti, pp. 79 and 191; and Hepokoski, p. 134</ref> [[Leonard Bernstein]] conducted the work at the Met and the [[Vienna State Opera]], and on record.<ref>Hepokoski, pp. 135–136</ref> The advocacy of these and later conductors has given the work an assured place in the modern repertoire.{{refn| Among leading conductors of later generations who have been associated with ''Falstaff'' are [[Claudio Abbado]] and [[Colin Davis|Sir Colin Davis]], both of whom recorded the work twice.<ref name=operadis />|group=n}}

Among revivals in the 1950s and later, Hepokoski singles out as particularly notable the [[Glyndebourne Festival Opera|Glyndebourne]] productions with [[Fernando Corena]] and later [[Geraint Evans]] in the title role; three different stagings by [[Franco Zeffirelli]], for the [[Holland Festival]] (1956), Covent Garden (1961) and the Metropolitan Opera (1964); and [[Luchino Visconti]]'s 1966 version in Vienna.<ref>Hepokoski, pp. 136–137</ref> A 1982 production by [[Ronald Eyre]], more reflective and melancholy than usual, was staged in [[Los Angeles]], London and [[Florence]]; [[Renato Bruson]] was Falstaff and Giulini conducted.<ref>Higgins, John. "Autumnal mastery of Verdi's emotional range", ''The Times'', 16 April 1982, p. 9</ref> Among more recent players of the title role [[Bryn Terfel]] has taken the part at Covent Garden in 1999, in a production by [[Graham Vick]], conducted by [[Bernard Haitink]].<ref>Milnes, Rodney. "In the belly of the best", ''The Times'', 8 December 1999, p. 44</ref> and at the Metropolitan Opera in a revival of the Zeffirelli production, conducted by [[James Levine]] in 2006.<ref>Clark, Robert S. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/20464499 Music Chronicle], ''The Hudson Review'', Winter, 2006, pp. 633–634 {{subscription required}}</ref>

Although ''Falstaff'' has become a regular repertoire work there nonetheless remains a view expressed by John von Rhein in the ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'' in 1985: "''Falstaff'' probably always will fall into the category of 'connoisseur's opera' rather than taking its place as a popular favorite on the order of ''La traviata'' or ''Aida.''"<ref>Rhein, John von. [https://www.chicagotribune.com/1985/04/27/solti-cso-brilliant-in-spirited-falstaff/ "Solti, CSO brilliant in spirited ''Falstaff''"], ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'', 27 April 1985</ref>