Nicola Luisotti: Serving Verdi Photo by Terrence McCarthy
San Francisco Opera's current extraordinary production of Verdi's Falstaff features not only Bryn Terfel and an outstanding cast, but Nicola Luisotti and the Opera Orchestra at their best in the performance of a wondrous, complex score.
The orchestra sparkles, woodwinds and brass sing away. Among the many great solos: Kevin Rivard's horn call from the audience, Janet Popesco Archibald's English horn, Julie McKenzie's flute, Mingjia Liu's oboe, and Rufus Olivier's bassoon.
I should probably begin by clarifying what I said in my review about previous approaches that he was rejecting. My guess is that you can come up with examples similar to my own for those "mere sound effects," such as the storm in the final act of Rigoletto; but I would also note that it is hard to find examples in which the brass is not used in a martial capacity, through connotation if not explicit denotation. On the other hand, those "grand expressions of emotion" come primarily from the sorts of surges he could get out of a full string section.
Still "modern," a century ago it was downright revolutionary
So what makes Falstaff different? The technique that sticks most in my memory was the superposition of extremes. What first caught my attention was a melodic line with doubling over two (if not three) octaves. At the top you had high winds (clarinets I think), while down below there was a bassoon and possibly the bass clarinet.
I actually want to focus on that bass clarinet a bit, because that also relates to my current conjecture that Verdi's score was making approving nods to Wagner. Most of the parallels I have followed for this argument involve the rich counterpoint in Meistersinger. However, for quite some time, I have come to believe that Wagner could endow the bass clarinet with major dramatic significance, particularly if you look at the part it plays in Götterdämmerung. I wrote a to my Rehearsal Studio blog about this back in 2011.
I have no idea how conscious Verdi was of endowing specific instrumental voices with dramatic significance. We could make a case that the separation of extreme registers was an indication of just how far Falstaff's "extreme" behavior differed from acceptable norms. Of course, Osmin "goes to extremes" in Seraglio; but that is just a comic device reinforced by Blondchen's imitation.
Falstaff is a character with far more dramatic substance, and it is the separation, rather than the extremes themselves, that may bring attention of the nature of his character. On the other hand, the use of the bass clarinet may just have been a me-too gesture from Verdi!
The overall blending of sonorities, particularly from the winds, created effects that I had not encountered in other Verdi operas. Bear in mind, however, that this all comes from my first serious listening to this score in performance, simply because, at past performances, I have been more preoccupied with Shakespeare. Also, these are the sorts of subtleties that are often neglected by record producers, who tend to be more focused on the vocalists when opera is at stake. The Dover reprint of the full score is, in fact, available for download from IMSLP.
