The Unique Charms of Pippinized Opera

A couple of merry wives took possession of the Florence Gould Theater on Sunday afternoon at the Palace of the Legion of Honor. The occasion was Pocket Opera’s performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor, by Otto Nicolai, who died two months after its 1849 premiere, at the age of 38. Pocket Opera is celebrating its 30th year of existence this season, and the last four years have seen the development of a productive collaboration with Notre Dame de Namur University. This production of the Merry Wives opened in Belmont a couple of weeks ago with a student chorus and mostly student soloists, then moved to San Francisco with Pocket Opera soloists, as the student soloists joined the chorus. Donald Pippin, that master of language both verbal and musical, was in fine fettle. He began with a cascade of phrases straight out of Shakespeare describing the larger-than-life Sir John Falstaff, then continued with his own choice spoken introductions to the scenes. He and the redoubtable Pocket Philharmonic managed to keep the performance together without a conductor on Sunday, yet with few dicey moments. Nicolai, a German, based his Italian libretto on Shakespeare, and Pippin had translated it back into English. Pippinized Shakespeare is a unique work of art. The minimal sets were used to good effect, beginning with two mailboxes labeled “Ford” and “Page” — a means of instant identification of the two eponymous wives, made somewhat redundant when Falstaff’s identical love letters arrived in the form of text messages. Falstaff had unwisely propositioned both ladies, in the same words, and thus began a conspiracy to expose him and also to cure Mr. Ford of his overweening jealousy. The plan was for Mrs. Ford to encourage Falstaff’s advances, then for Mrs. Page to sound an alarm at the approach of Ford, upon which they would hide Falstaff in a large laundry basket to be smuggled out of the house and emptied into the River Thames. Marcelle Dronkers, a comedienne extraordinaire, was a standout as Mrs. Ford. Her strong, warm soprano voice, lyrical and flexible by turns, was fully up to the role. She was a vivid presence from the start, conspiring with Mrs. Page, planning the moves she would use on Falstaff, dancing with a shirt from the laundry, carrying on a brief flirtation with the violist, turning a descending chromatic passage into sobs as she confronted her husband, even choosing the right spot on which to faint at the end of Act 1.

Faculty and Students Alike Sing Out

Dronkers was ably abetted by Meghan Dibble as Mrs. Page. Notre Dame de Namur was represented by faculty members Dronkers, Lee Strawn as a suspicious Mr. Ford, and Justin Taylor Nixon as the amusingly French Dr. Cajus, as well as by grad student Timothy John Rhein as Mr. Page and a chorus of neighbors, servants, insects, elves, and spirits. The subplot that weaves through this farce is the love story of the younger generation. Anne Page loves Mr. Fenton, you see, but her father wants to marry her off to the rich Mr. Slender (Jeffrey Wang), though her mother’s preference is for the exotic Dr. Cajus. We meet each of the suitors in turn. It immediately becomes clear why Anne prefers Fenton: his singing. In the person of tenor Brian Thorsett, he possesses a magnificent voice that is both powerful and tender. Allison Collins sang Anne. Her voice, though pleasing, was no match for her swain’s, so in their duets he gallantly reined in his instrument. In Shakespeare as in Verdi, Falstaff is difficult to play. In Nicolai’s opera, he seems to be a fairly one-dimensional victim. Roger McCracken sang the role well, but maybe could have found more larger-than-life moments of glee and overconfidence between humiliations. Act 2 lacks the first act’s momentum, as the composer doesn’t seem quite up to managing three successive conspiracies against Falstaff. I can’t imagine what Nicolai was thinking when he wrote a duet for basses Ford and Falstaff with only violin accompaniment. Played by a solo violin it results in some strange tuning problems. My compliments to director Debra Lambert, costumer Katherine Mills, and the person who impersonated a bush in Act 2.