The amazingly prolific and informed Garry Wills (not always right, but always fascinating) has a new book on Verdi's three operas based on the plays of Shakespeare: Verdi's Shakespeare: Men of the Theater. There is an excerpt in the current New York Review of Books. Wills writes:
Most of the many operas made from Shakespeares plays are failures. Loose adaptations have been more successfulovertures, fantasias (like Tchaikovskys Romeo and Juliet), incidental music (like Mendelssohns for A Midsummer Nights Dream), variations (like Berliozs Batrice and Bndict). The rare success of a complete Shakespearean operalike Benjamin Brittens A Midsummer Nights Dreamis a one-off for its composer. Verdi is the only one who created three solid masterpieces from Shakespeare plays. They not only succeeded at the time of their premieres but have grown in reputation over the years, standing out even from his own extraordinary line of great works. The last twoOtello and Falstaffare arguably the greatest things he ever wrote. He composed more operas from Schillers plays (four) than from Shakespeare, and some of those are very impressiveespecially Don Carlos. But none towers up above his Shakespeare operas.
My own love affair with the two great masters, Shakespeare and Verdi, began in Freshman year of high school. The Shakespearean play we studied was "The Merchant of Venice," with ample portions committed to memory. Happily, that year it was also the play performed by the Dramatic Society. One of my Freshman classmates, whose voice had not yet broken, played the role of Portia -- as would have been done in Shakespeare's day. (Wills' excerpt develops the point in some detail.) The Duke of Venice, in that long ago school production, was played by Senior Raymond Adams, who entered the Jesuits upon graduation, became a brilliant scholar, and was savagely murdered in Africa.That same year, my home parish's assistant pastor, newly arrived from Italy, gave me two large albums of 78 rpm recordings of Aida. I've been hooked on Verdi ever since. I recently listened to Aida driving from Boston to New York, and a flood of memories and associations welled up -- like Proust's "petite madeleine" experience. And there came a renewed appreciation for Verdi's musical genius. But, I agree with Wills that "Otello and Falstaff are arguably the greatest things he ever wrote." Though I might amend him to say (with a touch of chauvinism?), that Otello is the greatest of all operas.
