jan 1, 1893 - Falstaff

Description:

a comic opera in three acts by the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was adapted by Arrigo Boito from Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV, parts 1 and 2.

Masterly Amusement: Falstaff
1. Verdi was led to opera via a tradition of buffa, mixed with seria. He shunned the
supernatural. He strove for present action and let humankind be responsible for its own fate.
a. Wagner worked from the tragic tradition, reveled in the supernatural, and
worked within static tableaux.
2. Differences between the two can easily be drawn from their final operas: Falstaff and Parsifal.
3. Verdi worked, he said, for his own amusement. He essentially returned to buffa.
4. Both composers achieved a seamlessness in their final works.
5. Both composers used melodic reminiscence. This is leitmotif for Wagner and a similar but slightly different use of leitmotif by Verdi. For example, in Verdi, recurring melodies express attitudes or sentiments, not the characters or settings themselves.

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