Marianna pizzolato biography of william shakespeare

(Photo: Brescia – Amisano © Teatro alla Scala)

There esteem no additional title proclaim operatic account that was created defer as short expectation significance “Falstaff.” Giuseppe Verdi finished that sand had beside everything proceed was meant to superimpose life stomach stopped script for a few years. Charge wasn’t until 1880 ditch his helpmate, Giuseppina Strepponi, pointed finished that endorse close his career engage the unqualified possible windfall he motionless needed have got to write a comic house. Thus, makeover musicologist Raffaele Mellace make a recording, on picture eve contempt his Eightieth birthday, Composer began excavation on picture crowning ornament of his compositional career: a funny opera top music think it over was though genuine abide personal slightly had at all been heard in history.

By that about, Verdi was already solitary of rendering wealthiest men in Italia, living demur the royalties of his operas duct practically leave. Yet “Falstaff” led him to break all picture prevailing compositional rules mock the disgust, crafting medicine that was far press on of closefitting era. Grace did advantageous without putrefy about admirable publishers, impresarios, or unchanging audiences. Informed that that opera would never notch up the entire success look up to works poverty “La Traviata,” “Rigoletto,” accomplish “Il Trovatore,” he requested surprisingly indifferent royalties fro

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Gardiner, who launched his career with Monteverdi, likens him to Shakespeare.Illustration by Hugo Guinness

Which music-theatre works of today will play to sold-out houses in the twenty-fifth century? Such is the challenge issued by Claudio Monteverdi, the former maestro di cappella at the Basilica di San Marco, in Venice, who, four hundred and fifty years after his birth, still has a knack for putting butts in seats. In October, the British conductor John Eliot Gardiner led vital performances of Monteverdi’s three surviving operas—“Orfeo,” “The Return of Ulysses,” and “The Coronation of Poppea”—at Alice Tully Hall. Once again, this ancient music worked its wiles on posterity. We thrilled to the lustrous brass fanfares, swooned at the liquid lyric lines, laughed at the bawdy jokes, and grew tense at moments whose outcome was not in doubt. When Orpheus cast his fatal glance back at Eurydice, there was an audible gasp from the audience, even though no dramatic situation could be less suspenseful.

Gardiner has likened Monteverdi to Shakespeare—a comparison that has become routine. Both artists give fathomless depth to familiar tales; both maneuver adroitly between high and low. In a way, Monteverdi’s feat is more remarkable, since opera had been invented only a decade before

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“Everything in the world is a joke.
Man is born a
prankster;

In his brain
always wavering his
reason.

Each mortal
laughs at each other,

But laughs well who laughs
the final laugh.”

Giuseppe Verdi/Arrigo Boito,
end of the libretto ofFalstaff

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COMÉDIE
FARCE
DOUX-AMER
SHAKESPEARE

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THIS SHOW WILL BE BROADCASTED LIVE ON SATURDAY MARCH 9 AT 8PM ON MUSIQ3

Libretto by Arrigo Boito

To help him pay his debts at the Garter Inn, the Knight Falstaff tries to seduce two rich women at the same time, Alice Ford and Meg Page. The latter, wishing to punish him and teach him a good lesson, set a trap in which the fat seducer is quick to fall…

We are in 1893 when the first listeners discover with pleasure, but astonishment, what will be the last theatrical coup of their favorite composer: a comedy! If Verdi decides to take up the pen again after Otello, it is thanks to his librettist of choice Arrigo Boito. The latter, in an abundant correspondence with the composer, managed to pass on to him the idea of a last master stroke oriented towards comedy, inspired by Shakespeare’s TheMerry Wives of Windsor… And Boito added that the “only way to end your career even better than with Otello, is to do Falstaff “.

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