Balfe: Falstaff

 Opera 14

Balfe: Falstaff

Soloists

RTE concert orchestra

Mario Zambelli

Balfe came off badly in my 365 project year. I condemned the Bohemian Girl to the list of pieces I never wanted to hear againhttps://andrew365newpieces.blogspot.com/2025/06/balfe-bohemian-girl.html.  So I didn't have high expectation for this. It turned out however to be an impressive piece. It is an Italian opera very much in the tradition of Donizetti and could easily pass for an early Verdi opera (it is a near contemporary of Oberto). It has all of the vigour one expects from an Italian opera of this period together with some attractive ensembles. The individual arias themselves are perhaps less appealing - they are obvious display pieces with some, what now seems, distracting coloratura and ornamental writing. The big tenor aria, written for Rubini, was completely over the top, obviously to show off the star tenor's agility in the highest register. At the time he would have sung the high notes in a semi-falsetto. The 'ut de poitrine' ie. the top C with the full chest voice was for the next generation of singers.  The singer here, Barry Banks, made a decent shot of it but it really is quite a challenge to listen to.

The scene of Falstaff being teased and pinched came off well here (as it has in all of the operas in this little series) and similar the Windsor forest atmosphere was atmospherically created.  How strange it is that The Bohemian Girl, which I thought was a pretty tawdry piece, held the stage for at least 100 years whereas this opera was performed precisely six times and then completely forgotten until it was revived for this performance.  There's no accounting for taste.