Falstaff, or The Three Tricks
Press reviews
a gem of an evening
Opera Now November 2003
There isn’t a company in England with as sharp a sense of fun as Bampton. Season after season they dig up rare gems, served up with canny wit, visual deftness and a musical spring that make them one of the high pleasures of an English summer.
Yet again the weather cleared - an hour beforehand - to permit an outdoor Friday performance in the idyllic Deanery Garden. (I was lucky : on Saturday the heavens reopened, and punters jammed into the adjacent church.)
Who stages Salieri's Falstaff nowadays? Recently Brigitte Fassbaender delivered an Innsbruck semistaging that confirmed Salieri holds his ground against Verdi himself. Falstaff yields a dozen superb arias, including a gem for a subsidiary character - Bardolph's yawning 'sleep' aria, which the young baritone Nicholas Merryweather contrived - ingeniously - to sing in a gruff piano, galvanising a production that (musically at least) began slowly, but soon picked up.
This was a gem of an evening. Director Jeremy Gray and his costume overseers Carmen Lasok and Lesley Brown updated Merry Wives to a Home Guard Windsor of the 1940s. Ford (Mark Wilde) returns in Air Force blue uniform, with an achingly funny Texan drawl. Wilde's musicality is astonishing : he can tease out a phrase with almost terrifying beauty, trim a shifting rubato to sly comic effect, and vary his arias to contrast facets of character like a seasoned master.
Amanda Pitt (Alice Ford) has a slender voice but a comic twinkle, loads of personality and tangible pathos. Salieri’s superb librettist, Defranceschi, drops in a scene (for their Viennese audience) where she bamboozles Falstaff in German disguise, singing in earthy pidgin-Deutsch. Pitt did it hilariously. Meg Page (actually here 'Mrs.Slender') is a feisty hussif who - in their bristling letter duet following Salieri's spine-splitting depiction of Falstaff concocting his twiddly screed - soon cries revenge ('Vendetta'). Joanne Thomas found enough of the Welsh hussy to characterise this entertaining mezzo role. Baritone Adam Green (Slender), notable for his sage ditty 'Reca in amor la gelosia', has Defranceschi's shrewdest line, as a demented Ford seeks the elusive Falstaff : 'Maybe you'll find him in your head.'
At the opera's core is the fat man, gloriously played by Mark Saberton, whose gruff bass-baritone range worked wonders with arias such as 'Nel impero di Cupido'. Saberton isn’t quite ready for the Verdi role, but - casting directors note - he's not far off. He has punch, precision, and with good direction, persona. Gilly French's aria translations rivalled the best Amanda Holden quality, and served him admirably.
Roderic Dunnett
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witty, imaginative...music of the highest order
Music and Vision 2003
There are now no less than four recordings of Salieri's Falstaff, ossia le tre Burle (The Three Pranks) on the market, and all of them confirm what aficianados have known for a long time : that even set against Verdi, Salieri's opera is witty, imaginative and contains music of the highest order.
As Bampton Classical Opera's director, Jeremy Gray, points out, Salieri's opera, written over a decade later for Vienna's Kärtnertor Theatre in 1899, is at times almost a homage to Mozart's Figaro : there are subtle echoes in the comic turns, sly indirect allusion, and curious shades of Cherubino and the searching Count. Though his star was waning, his ally Gluck long dead and he was by now teaching Beethoven (with Schubert to come), Salieri nearly outlived them all - dying, famously demented, in 1825.
There's always something good to say about Bampton. Gray and Gilly French have served up a sizzling translation. Mark Saberton, a Scottish Opera-trained baritone of considerable promise and gruff buffo potential, makes a cheerful job of the fat knight, aptly mollified in Bampton's entertaining ‘Herne the Hunter’ finale. Murray Hipkin stands high in a line of first class conductors for whom Bampton has furnished opportunities outside the usual repertoire.
Perhaps the only drawbacks were some undue musical pauses between scenes and one needlessly delaying scene change. Tenor Mark Wilde (an American airman in Windsor) has discovered comic potential, and pathos too, with his recent Candide for Graham Vick. A glorious voice. Adam Green confirmed the fascinating variety of Slender's (Page's) arias, best when bassoon-led. Amanda Pitt's ‘prank’ - Salieri (in an Italian opera!) disguises Alice Ford as a German (‘Oh, die Männer kenn ich schon’) - was hilarious, with shades of World War II (‘Allo Allo') television parody. The women’s duet about the infamous letter ‘La stessa, la stessissima’ - ‘Each sentence, every syllable’ was fun; the Act II female trio, even more striking.
Others to note are the terrific, combative Mrs. Slender of Welsh soprano Joanne Thomas, impressive across the range, and the Bardolpho of young Nicholas Merryweather, already Belcore and Papageno for Cologne Conservatoire and, if less commanding in his later aria, ingeniously superb in Bardolph's piano opening 'sleep'aria, one of Salieri's best ideas ever.
Roderic Dunnett
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Fat Jack's merry life in the RAF
The Times 31 July 2003
Poor old Salieri - was ever a composer more doomed to be remembered for anything but his music? Friend and non-murderer of Mozart, teacher of Beethoven, he was more than the conscientious hack of myth, and nothing shows his devotion to Mozart's memory better than this sparkling homage written in 1799.
It was left to those enthusiasts of 18th-century resurrectionism at Bampton Classical Opera to give the work its British premiere. This admirable outfit, brainchild of two Westminster schoolteachers, has for 11 years been unearthing and performing lost and forgotten works, generally on the deanery lawn of this Cotswold village. Which is tempting fate, and fate duly obliged with nine hours of rain, forcing everyone at this performance to mash into the church next door for a rudimentary semi-staging with few props but a laundry basket, restricted sight-lines and an audience gently steaming into the evening like so many old horses.
A relay system had to be set up for the singers to follow conductor Murray Hipkin's beat, which was no doubt more measured as a result. The singers, so used to being outside, seemed a bit disconcerted at actually being able to hear themselves, but they overcame the logistics with style to give Falstaff a worthy if rather restrained baptism.
This slimmed-down version of The Merry Wives was painlessly updated by director Jeremy Gray to wartime Windsor with a platoon of strangely familiar Home Guard, Falstaff as a meddlesome retired officer, and Ford a martinet RAF Group Captain whose distrust of his wife mirrors the count's in Figaro - as does her feisty maid and much else in the show.
Mark Saberton was a characterful if relatively slimline Fat Jack ("England's own Adonis"), orotund, blusterous and engagingly frank about his motivation (more pecuniary than amorous), but Salieri devotes much attention to the minor characters: Mark Wilde's Ford and Mrs Page (Joanne Thomas) had good old-fashioned opera-seria tunes and accompanied recits; Mrs Ford (Amanda Pitt) a vaudeville turn as German temptress in black trenchcoat and baby-doll nightie; Bardolph (Nicholas Merryweather) an Eeyorish role as Falstaff's gloomy batman; Betty (Ilona Domnich) the whole Despina thing.
Nobody was more dismissive of his own music than Salieri, but there are some lovely pieces: a sweetly pathetic reconciliation between the Fords, a dancing duet that Beethoven turned into variations, some pert ensembles recalling both The Magic Flute and Don Giovanni. All this, and something probably never before heard on this earth, recititivo secco done in the style and accent of Elvis, plus the line: "There's just one problem: I have to get some antlers."
Jaded metropolites might like to know that Bampton will be coming to St John's, Smith Square (box office 020-7222 1061) on September 18 with Cimarosa's opera buffa The Two Barons of Rocca Azzurra, an extended anecdote of considerable charm. Remember: a spot of mindless galanterie never did anyone the slightest harm.
Robert Thicknesse
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pure magic
The Independent 31 July 2003
Last weekend's laurels, however, go to Bampton Classical Opera, whose fabled luck held yet again: not a raindrop fell on the idyllic Deanery Garden for the first night of Salieri's Falstaff, premiered in 1899 (a century before Verdi's) and a perfect fit for Bampton's capable young Scottish-trained buffo baritone, Mark Saberton, revamped by the director Jeremy Gray as Colonel Blimp in a Dad's Army setting. This was full of relevant laughs, with Gilly French's slick translations evincing a good deal of love for Salieri's opera, which is a joy.
Falstaff has a thumping good first scene, not quite sharply enough delivered by the conductor Murray Hipkin, who left a few awkward gaps but shifted the accompanied recitative along vividly from his quasi-fortepiano. Falstaff's big arias are terrific and Ford's every bit as witty (tenor Mark Wilde is fabulously funny). One aria went adrift in the open air; the rest was pure magic. The plum was Bardolph's sleep aria. If one needed proof of Salieri's stature, this alone, with its comically sliding chromatics, would suffice. Nicholas Merryweather seems a potential plus for any medium- sized opera company; sharp acting, clear delivery and a more than promising baritone.
Bampton Classical Opera performs Cimarosa's The Two Barons of Rocca Azzurra at St John's, Smith Square, London (020-7222 1061) on 18 September.
Roderic Dunnett
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uniformly excellent
The Oxford Times 1 August 2003
‘Outrageous. I’m absolutely furious’ warbles Mrs Slender (Joanne Thomas), with all the full-bosomed hauteur of an offended suburbanite in a William Brown story. The prankster with an agenda is, in this case, not William, but Falstaff; and the cause de guerre is not so much the letter Mrs Slender has received wherein Falstaff urges his suit than that Mrs Ford, her friend, has received an identical copy. It’s a ham-fisted, William-style exploit. Falstaff spends the rest of the opera paying for it, for the vengeful ladies, continually outsmarting him, prove outrageous likewise.
Frankly, a bit of outrage is needed. Defranceschi’s elegantly-sculptured, single-joke tale finds an ideal partner in Salieri’s score, which is ultra-pleasant, but terrified of giving offence. Both plot and score evoke memories of The Marriage of Figaro; both clearly proclaim why Mozart has been rescued by time, Salieri largely not. This production takes the sensible path of preserving those flowers Salieri offers but not making them too artificially fragrant. Murray Hipkin’s orchestra plays discreetly; the singers never get carried away.
It’s a help, also, that nearly all these latter effectively convey the story’s gist through remarkably lucid recitative: the exception being Amanda Pitt (Mrs Ford), who coped bravely, last Friday night, with a throat infection. We were still lucky to have her, however; she is a delightful actress. In addition, the lyric singing is uniformly excellent, the presence of Mark Saberton, as Falstaff, and Mark Wilde, as Mr Ford, setting a gold seal on affairs in this department. Saberton, in particular, is developing a restrained, caressing style, replete with character. Behind these two, lesser figures stake their claim. Nicholas Merryweather, as Bardolpho, sings with sturdy clarity, and good-humoured intimacy; Ilona Domnich, as Betty, doesn’t get much, but when it comes her treatment of it makes you lift your head.
Needful outrage was furnished not just by the weather, which turned arctic after nightfall in the Bampton Deanery garden, but by courtesy of the production’s tongue-in-cheek incongruities which supply, in modern terms, the humour which this faded conventional tale now lacks. Mrs Ford comes on disguised as Marlene Dietrich, naturally giving Falstaff quite a turn in a World War Two setting where the spear-carriers are Dad’s Army folk, and the English Women’s Land Army. She is not outshone by her husband, however, masquerading as a camel fighter-pilot, with goggles and a yankee accent. But the true running joke lies in the English translation, by Jeremy Gray and Gilly French, which, with its clinking rhymes and robust English idioms (“You can stuff it up your clairvoyance”) served up in ruthless contrast with the period operatic style, surpasses even the usual standard.
Derek Jole
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Thirty-one scenes of sheer joy
Opera magazine on our revival at the Bath Shakespeare Festival, March 2004
What with four CD recordings and a semi-staging at Innsbruck, it’s fast becoming clear – indeed, some cognoscenti have always known – that Salieri’s Falstaff, far from being some feeble pre-echo of Verdi and Nicolai, is a work of consequence and wit in its own right.
This humdinger of an opera runs Mozart close; and Jeremy Gray’s 1940s, Dad’s Army-type staging for Bampton Classical Opera caught the full fun of the piece. He had a capable Falstaff in Mark Saberton, a Bampton regular with a forceful baritone and a ripe feel for understated comedy. I found his Bath performance a little too restrained: more girdling pillows and self-indulgence wouldn’t have gone amiss. But the voice coped admirably with ‘Nell’ impero di Cupido’, ‘Sorte pettogola’ and the ‘Presto, presto’ chimes-at-midnight arioso, all characterfully translated by the co-producer Gilly French; the doomed flirtations were a delight.
So was the letter-writing scene, rounded off with a flourish and heralded by a marvellous sleepy Bardolph – anyone doubting Salieri’s comic genius should hear this scene – from an impressive young baritone, Nicholas Merryweather, who looks set to become a presentable Falstaff himself. The girls – including Ilona Domnich’s clear Betty (a reduced Mistress Quickly) - shone. Joanne Thomas’s Mrs Slender (Mrs Page) was a model of matronly cunning, and Amanda Pitt’s delightful Mrs Ford was slightly wispy vocally, but delicious in the pastiche-German gulling scene that Salieri’s librettist, Defrancheschi, drops in to evoke Austrian belly-laughs. No young lovers (unlike Verdi), but Salieri’s artful variety renders them redundant.
The husbands add the icing: Slender (Adam Green) had some confident duets and two fine arias, including a reflective baritone soliloquy that lends Salieri’s opera, late on, its shrewd, kindly and unjudgemental moral tone. Top billing went to the tenor Mark Wilde (Ford), whose burgeoning jealousy supplied the evening’s chief delights: ‘Ah, degli affanni’ was unalloyed magic. When Wilde (as ‘Brook’) shed the RAF tones for a Texan airman’s drawl, the audience fell about. Bampton makes Classical opera huge fun, they have range, their singing is serviceable and their pacing (Murray Hipkin conducted here) vital. Chorus and ensembles sparkled. Thirty-one scenes of sheer joy.
Roderic Dunnett
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consistency and precision
Opera News at the Bath Shakespeare Festival 2004
Some decades after Antonio Salieri (1750-1825) was so deliciously libeled in Amadeus, his operas are emerging from oblivion to delight a new generation. Salieri's career saw the hard-working Italian at the very hub of Viennese opera for three decades. While Tarare (1787), Axur, Re d'Ormus (1788) and Les Danaides (1784) - the stage work that first attracted young Hector Berlioz to opera - reveal a tragic dramatist of real power, versed in the Gluckian school and underpinned by Neapolitan tradition, Falstaff (1799) is a sparkling, seasoned comedy that, much like Verdi's opera of the same name, turns The Merry Wives of Windsor, a relatively harmless Shakespearian divertissement, into a mature major work.
The ever-resourceful Oxfordshire-based Bampton Classical Opera presented Salieri's Falstaff at the Theatre Royal, Bath (seen March 7), in a cheerfully subversive, slightly nihilistic production by Jeremy Gray, set in the 1940s. Gray's Bampton productions pry humor from his texts with a consistency and precision that lift them way above the lightweight shenanigans of "garden" opera. Moves work: everyone is always in the right place.
Gray and his co-translator/producer Gilly French, a talented husband-and-wife-team, have amassed a gifted and uproarious company over recent seasons. One fine addition is mezzo Joanne Thomas, Wales's entrant for a recent Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, who brought an attractive timbre and a forceful personality to the role of Mrs. Slender (Verdi's Mistress Page). Adam Green was an agreeably commonsense Slender. Amanda Pitt, a delightful, impish character actress, was ideally cast as Mrs Ford, who dons Resistance costume to plot futile assignations with the hapless fat man. As her husband, the glorious, fast-rising young tenor Mark Wilde - who has an exquisite lyric voice - goes one better, forgoing his R.A.F. costume for a World War II Texan airman's leather jacket and goggles. Much of the piece's piquancy lies in the way C.P. Defrancheschi's wonderful libretto builds up Ford's growing, misplaced jealousy of Falstaff. As sung by Wilde, Ford's four key arias proved the telling highlight of this superbly imaginative score.
Baritone Mark Saberton, another capable Bampton regular, is made for the role of Falstaff, who is allocated a delightful program of arias by Salieri. Saberton's impressive negotiation of key passages, such as scene twelve's hallmark aria "Nell impero di Cupido," suggest he has Verdian potential. Salieri adds a subplot with pair of entertaining lesser roles: a glorious snoring Bardolph (young German-trained baritone Nicholas Merryweather) and a characterful maid/friend/messenger/confidante, Betty (Russian-born Ilona Domnich), Bardolph's perky inamorata. Murray Hipkin conducted lucidly: this show never sagged for a second.
Roderic Dunnett
