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This is part two of a 2-part interview with two of the pricipal singers from New York City Opera's production of Falstaff: Jan Opalach and Heather Johnson.  To read part 1 of this interview, please click HERE.

 

Heather Johnson:  Musically, I can say for myself -- I mean, Jan is the title character, he has the most to do really -- but even for myself, like Jan said earlier, it's a complete and utter ensemble piece.  There are really only a couple of moments when there are solos on stage.  Jan has them, Ford has them, but otherwise, the mayhem is always happening with everybody, all the characters on stage.  So it's extremely -- musically -- it's a very, very difficult piece.  I've done, I don’t know how many new, 20th century works, but this by far is one of the harder things I've ever done, because it's so interjectory.  One person says one line, then you say a line -- its so talky, everyone says something, so it's a real game, you have to know everybody's part.  You have to know exactly what’s coming next at all times.  There are no real moments when everybody’s on stage... with the exception of Fenton, who gets the aria, at the beginning --

 

Jan Opalach:  And Nanetta.

 

Heather Johnson:  And Nanetta.  Besides the moments with Falstaff and Ford when they're on stage by themselves, there's no real moment of a true aria, like we're used to.  And partially what's so ingenious about the piece, too, is that people always talk about how there's no melody.  There are no tunes, you don't walk away humming any tunes, but I think it was Verdi's design to do that.  If you really do listen, there are little melodies, but he doesn't repeat things very often.  If you look at it, there's very little repetition of melody in this, which is unusual.  So musically, it's very difficult, and it's hard to keep everything tight musically, with the mayhem that's happening on stage as far as running around and being so physical with it.  That's the challenging thing for me -- keeping it all together musically as well as keeping the comedy alive and the physicality of the piece together.  Because it's a physical piece; it's a lot of running around.

 

Jan Opalach:  With intent.

 

Heather Johnson:  Yes, with intent.

 

Jan Opalach:  Well, it will.  We don't know yet, but it will probably take at least an hour, is my guess, because fortunately, I get to take off the weight as far as the costume's concerned.  But I mean, it's character makeup, so the makeup and hair people here are so talented, and we've been working together for a long time, so they know my face very well.   But to me, you mentioned one of the secrets of getting into character -- and this is not unique to me in any way, I know a lot of colleagues talk about it -- that you really don't complete the character until the character is completed in terms of the total picture.  And there are certain things in terms of the way I carry myself, in terms of the way I use my face, that I won’t find until Falstaff is there, complete as far as the makeup, the costume, the hair and all that is concerned.

 

Heather Johnson:  In opera too, it's different from theater, where the actors always do their own makeup.  It's part of their process of getting themselves into character, and I know that when I've worked with theater actors, they think it's the weirdest thing in the world that we go and have someone else put our character on us.  For me, I like it.  I like watching somebody else make the transformation.  I like watching in the mirror as I transform, without having to do it myself, watching as I transform into the character.

 

 

Heather Johnson:  Well, there's one moment that Jan does that makes me laugh every time he does it, and it's when he comes in, in Act Two, Scene Two, and after Quickly has gone to Falstaff and said, "Oh yes, she's madly in love with you, Ford will be gone between two and three, please come and see her then."  There's this funny staged bit where he can't fit between the chair and the table -- it makes me laugh every time.  I'm hiding at that point, watching the scene happen.  It makes me giggle every time.  But there are a lot of funny bits like that.

 

Jan Opalach:  But again, that comes out of a reality.  Not out of, "Oh, let's be funny," but the circumstances that the characters find themselves in that is the core of the piece, which is what makes it so enjoyable -- and that's whether it's Verdi's opera or Shakespeare's play.

 

Heather Johnson:  Exactly.  That's really the genius of the piece.

 

 

Heather Johnson:  It's not like slapstick.  I've done so much Rossini, and a lot of Rossini can become slapsticky, and that's sort of what people expect -- there's not a lot of subtlety.  The difference is that a lot of the comedy in the piece is actually subtle.

 

Jan Opalach:  And circumstantial.

 

Heather Johnson:  And circumstantial.  And there's nothing slapsticky about it, although some of it is physical, and could be thought of as slapsticky.  But Jan is right, one of the hardest things in comedy is to keep it real so it's not a character.

 

 

Jan Opalach:  Usually, you only get that from first-timers, which is understandable.  There are reasons why certain operas are ideal first-time operas, like The Barber of Seville, like Marriage of Figaro, because they are emotionally accessible and they still have both drama and humor in them.  Falstaff can be a problematical piece for a first-timer because traditionally, it doesn't have this thing we were talking about earlier, where you get the extended aria.  There is beautiful music in it, but it's not constructed in a typical way.

 

Heather Johnson:  A lot of musicologists, historians, and musicians, look at this as Verdi's great masterpiece because it's constructed unbelievably.  There's really not a bad note from the beginning to the end.

 

 

Heather Johnson:  No, he really only had one other comedy, and he wrote it like fifty years before he wrote this.  But I think it's great this was his last, and I know that he was sad when he completed it.  He was sad to say goodbye to John Falstaff.  When he sent off the score to Ricordi, he wrote a little poem saying, "Farewell, stay who you are, John Falstaff."  It was cute.

 

 

Heather Johnson:  Well, I have a lot of people coming to the show that (1) have never been to an opera, or (2) have never seen Falstaff before.  So I want people to get lost in the story.  I want people to be caught up in the moments, even if they know The Merry Wives of Windsor, even if they know how it ends.  I want them to be like, "Oh, I wonder if they're going to get away with it," or, "I wonder what's going to happen next!"  Even up until the very end, there's one moment after another where everybody's plans are sort of foiled.  So it's fun and I want the audience to be able to stay connected, to want to know what's going to happen next, and be entertained, really, because it's a very entertaining story.

 

Jan Opalach:  I think, especially for first-timers, that they should allow themselves to be drawn into the human people that are on stage.  And I hesitate to use the word "character," but the real people that are on stage in the sense of investing in the outcome emotionally.  Even though we know the outcome, there is an anticipation of how they're going to get there.  Also, people should enjoy the music's subtleties, which sometimes are a bit advanced, but I think because the music is so beautifully written and the characters are so fully realized, that you can identify with both the characters and the circumstances that they're in.  And yes, it takes place in a different era and in a different world, but still, it's very accessible on an emotional level.  I hope.

 

 

Heather Johnson:  Well, the libretto is from Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor, but it also has little snippets of Henry IV and Henry V.

 

Jan Opalach:  But it's basically the story of Merry Wives, in which Falstaff is a down-on-his-luck, older knight.  He doesn’t quite have the revenue that he needs to have, and is working his wiles on these women to try and improve his cash flow.  It's basically the story of this man who is in his later years-- of course in those days, he was probably in his fifties -- who has these visions of himself as a slim knight who is still capable of wooing any woman on the planet.  And he happens to walk past this very pretty woman named Alice, who is the wife of a man named Ford.  And Falstaff decides that because she has said "Hello" to him, it must mean she’s madly in love with him.  So he has written two letters, because he also has an attraction to Meg, which is this lady --

 

Heather Johnson:  My character.

 

Jan Opalach:  And it's basically a story about the ladies, because they both get the letters at the same time.  Well... I'll let you tell that story.

 

Heather Johnson:  So it happens that these two women, who are basically chitty-chatty, like ladies getting together to gossip -- get together and say, "I've gotten this letter," and "I've gotten this letter as well."  They begin to read them, and Mistress Quickly, who is sort of different from the play --

 

Jan Opalach:  She's sort of like the nurse from Romeo and Juliet.

 

Heather Johnson:  Yeah, but her station is a little ambiguous in this opera.  In The Merry Wives of Windsor, I believe she's the nurse.  But Mistress Quickly is there, and Nanetta, who is Alice and Ford's daughter, is there as well.  So the four of them are having their little chatty thing, saying, "Oh my god, I have this letter," and they start to read the letters and realize that the letters are exactly the same.  Mistress Quickly thinks this is hilarious, and they decide, "Well, we're going to have to stick it to this guy, because this is not right." 

 

Jan Opalach:  He's got to be put in his place.

 

Heather Johnson:  We're going to put him in his place and say, "How dare you?"  It's very, very funny.

 

Jan Opalach:  Unbeknownst to the ladies, the men -- my servants, who are Pistola and Bardolfo-- get into an argument with Falstaff in the first act, and Falstaff kicks them out of the inn where they're staying.  To get revenge on Falstaff for that, they go to Ford, the husband of Alice, and tell him that Falstaff has written this amorous letter to his wife.  Ford, being the typical, raging, jealous husband, decides that he is going to get back at Falstaff, too.  In many ways, it's a comedy of errors, and it's a comedy of personality, in which the two different strata -- the sexual strata of men and women -- compete and play off each other.  That's one of the reasons why it's such an ensemble piece.

 

Heather Johnson:  It's all ensemble; it's amazing.

 

Jan Opalach:  Both musically and certainly physically.  And the characters have to be very much connected with each other, and talk to each other.  It's one of the opera's charms.

 

Heather Johnson:  The women come up with this whole plan to zing him, really -- catch him, have him caught in the act.  It's very funny in the end.

 

Jan Opalach:  And the plot falls apart because when Falstaff, in the second act, comes to visit Alice, Ford shows up unexpectedly.  And in order to prevent Ford from discovering what in fact is not the truth (but Ford thinks is the truth), they dump Falstaff in the back and they throw him in the Thames, in order to get him out.  Again, it's mostly a comedy of characters, a comedy of errors.

 

Many performers say that comedy is harder than drama.  Do you agree?

Heather Johnson:  It's absolutely true.  I think it comes more naturally to some people.  For me, comedy's not as difficult as it is for some people; maybe that's just because of my personality, I don't know.  But I think it's easier to show angst than to have good comic timing, and to be able to play off of others and work well together.  For comedy, I think it's more difficult.

 

Jan Opalach:  Well, I think the struggle with comedy is to keep the circumstances real and honest.

 

Heather Johnson:  So it doesn't become shtick.

 

Jan Opalach:  So that we're not being funny, but the circumstances we're in are funny for the audience. 

 

Heather Johnson:  I think it's especially true in this piece too, because there are moments of set-up comedy -- meaning the women are playing a joke on him -- and then there are moments of genuine comedy, where, for instance, Ford comes in and he is ranting and raving and the ladies are really nervous, and the comedy that happens from then on is real.  I mean it's not, I shouldn't say -- it's not real, it's not really a play within a play.   But, for instance, when the women are putting on this whole facade for Falstaff, it's funny but they're trying to be funny.  And it's goofy to the characters as well.  You know, they're serious for him but it's goofy.  At one point, Alice says to me [as Meg] when I'm trying to have this very dramatic moment, "Don't laugh, stop laughing!"  But then, you know, there have to be real genuine characters behind the comedy, especially when they get nervous.  So you can't become a caricature, or it can't turn into all shtick; otherwise it gets old and loses its comedic value.

 

 

Heather Johnson:  I think it's easier with the singing; you can use the music.

 

Jan Opalach:  Especially with a composer like Verdi, where there's so much humor in the music.  He gives a lot of -- if you listen to the orchestration and the rhythms and the way he's written and set the text -- there are a lot of comedic messages in that.  There are also highly dramatic points, too.  Ford's aria in the second act is intensely dramatic.  But also within that there are slightly -- I wouldn't say comedic -- but certainly amusing elements, even within Ford's rage of jealousy.

 

 

Heather Johnson:  It's a funny thing because, often times, the character of Meg can fall by the wayside; she's a character who disappears easily, which will not happen in this production, not if I have anything to do with it!  But it's a funny thing because for the opening scene, I tried to look at her as a character who's been married for a while, that her marriage is sort of boring and her life is sort of boring, but she goes about her business.

 

Jan Opalach:  And you never meet Meg's husband.

 

Heather Johnson:  No, you never meet the husband.

 

Jan Opalach:  So this is all back story.

 

Heather Johnson:  I think, too, that she's very excited to share this letter.  She's like, "Oh my gosh, somebody actually likes me!  This is so exciting, somebody thinks I'm attractive, blah blah blah," so when she realizes that she's been duped, she gets really hurt.  She's looking at this letter, and the other ladies think it's sort of funny, but she's really pissed off, too, and she really wants to get him.

 

Jan Opalach:  She wants to get even.

 

Heather Johnson:  She wants to get even.  She's the one, she's the first one who says, "Che vendetta," when they're talking about him.  She's like, "You know what?  We're going to get him."

Jan Opalach:  So does she initiate the plot?

Heather Johnson:  No, no, no.

 

Jan Opalach:  Does Mistress Quickly have the idea?

Heather Johnson:  We turn to Quickly and we say, "You're going to be our secretary, you're going to be the one to do whatever..."  But when they're talking, when we're all sort of ranting, I say, "Che vendetta," I say we're going to, that's --

 

 

Heather Johnson:  She's hurt and upset and she's thinking, "How dare you do this to me!"

 

Jan Opalach:  There's another thing that Meg picks up on in the scene with Falstaff and Alice, when Alice says, "Well, what about Meg?  You love me, but don't you also love Meg?"  And he says, "Oh, she's ugly, I don't like her," and Meg overhears him, which is another reason for her to be pissed off about it.

 

Heather Johnson:  He says, "Oh, her face is unattractive to me," or "She's ugly," and I hear it and then I get even more mad.  But it's a good motivation for the character; it's a key to keep throughout the whole thing.

 

Jan, what is Falstaff's real motivation?  Is it the money?

Jan Opalach:  He's horny.  That's basically his motivation; he's horny and wants money.  I mean that's, you know, what it is.

 

Do you think he really cares for these women?

Jan Opalach:  He does care. I mean, he's reliving his past.

 

Heather Johnson:  His glory days.

Jan Opalach:  His glory days, where they are objects of desire for him.  I don't want to say he's self-important, but he's very -- I sort of look upon him as a man-child.  That he has a lot of foibles, a lot of fears and a lot of strengths, and those manifest themselves in many, many different layers in the opera.  And this basically is just his passing infatuation with these two women, and also a possibility for him to be able to refill his coffers, because you realize at the beginning of the opera that he doesn't have any money.  He gets a bill from the landlord of the inn, and he discovers that, when Bardolfo is counting out the coins left in his purse, that he doesn't have enough money to pay for it.  So this is all part and parcel of a plan of getting more money, possibly by getting involved with Alice who then maybe would give him some money, or Meg who was the keys to the --

 

Heather Johnson:  Because we're both very wealthy women.  Meg and Alice are both very wealthy.

 

Jan Opalach:  But this is not an honest affection on his part; it's mostly a plan.