Shakespeare opera poll

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Va, vecchio John!

[kishnevi]

Can't vote.
You are asking me to decide between his two best operas (meaning tutti le opere, tutti!).
Otello/Falstaff.....

[mc ukrneal]

Otello has long been one of my favorite operas among all operas, let alone these three. It's about as close to perfection as an opera can be - beautiful melodies, great drama, interesting (flawed) characters, etc. Falstaff is a wonderful opera, but I have to go with my heart on this one.

[Brian]

I'll just take a moment to praise Arrigo Boito - the opera Falstaff turns one of Shakespeare's worst plays (and maybe his unfunniest comedy) into a classic through skillful rewriting and moving lots of offstage action onto the stage. So that opera has plenty achievement already, other than writing the music.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

While I love Otello and there is very little, if anything, to criticize in the music, some Boito's attempts in the libretto to make Iago more of a card-carrying villain by giving him rather empty expressions of hatred such as "L'alvo frenetico del mar sia la sua tomba!" at the very beginning of the opera and musically brilliant but textually lacking Credo in act II... sound a bit cheesy. Iago did make plenty of card-carrying villain comments in his monologues of the original play as well but the magnificent way Iago managed to wound the reader (and all the characters in the play as well) around his little finger... is at times absent in libretto. I think Boito was more brilliant in revised Simon Boccanegra and Falstaff (as Brian mentioned, great improvement compared to the play). Luckily, Iago has sufficient musical characterization to easily make him one of the greatest opera villains of all time. And I guess judging by mere libretto a work that is also meant to include music, in order to be whole, is a moot point.

[(poco) Sforzando]

While I love Otello and there is very little, if anything, to criticize in the music, some Boito's attempts in the libretto to make Iago more of a card-carrying villain by giving him rather empty expressions of hatred such as "L'alvo frenetico del mar sia la sua tomba!" at the very beginning of the opera and musically brilliant but textually lacking Credo in act II... sound a bit cheesy. Iago did make plenty of card-carrying villain comments in his monologues of the original play as well but the magnificent way Iago managed to wound the reader (and all the characters in the play as well) around his little finger... is at times absent in libretto. I think Boito was more brilliant in revised Simon Boccanegra and Falstaff (as Brian mentioned, great improvement compared to the play). Luckily, Iago has sufficient musical characterization to easily make him one of the greatest opera villains of all time. And I guess judging by mere libretto a work that is also meant to include music, in order to be whole, is a moot point.

These are all good points, IMO. While I love both Otello and Falstaff, Falstaff seems to me a quantum leap beyond even Otello in its musical design and ingenuity. I remember the first time I heard Falstaff, it went by so quickly that it all washed over me. But I just took the score, played it over and over at the piano scene by scene, and it all came together.

But pace Brian: as for Merry Wives being one of Shakespeare's worst plays, of course the Falstaff is not the same man as in the Henry IV set, but in fact MW plays extremely well on stage. Try the Globe Shakespeare DVD and see if you can keep from laughing. (Unlike Titus Andronicus, which I saw a few months ago at one of our local theatres. The acting was pretty good, but that play was bad, and I mean bad.)

[Chronochromie]

Macbeth...but not Verdi's, Sciarrino's Macbeth. Verdi's is meh.

I do love Falstaff and Otello though. Can't choose one at the moment.