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But this is not the end of Mozart's opera as he wrote it, as readers of this book have been told. This prologue of "Mefistofele" plays in heaven. "In the heavens," says Theodore Marzials, the English translator of Boito's opera, out of deference to the religious sensibilities of the English people, to spare which he also changes "God" into "sprites," "spirits," "powers of good," and "angels."
The gossip is trying to seduce the devil into an avowal of love; Margherita and Faust are discussing their first meeting and the passion which they already feel for each other. Boito's Margherita has more of Goethe's Gretchen than Gounod's Marguerite.
Boito's father was an Italian, his mother a Pole. From either one or both he might have inherited the intensity of expression which marks his works, both poetical and musical; but the tendency to philosophical contemplation which characterizes "Mefistofele," even in the stunted form in which it is now presented, is surely the fruit of his maternal heritage and his studies in Germany.
Six years after 'Otello' came 'Falstaff, produced in 1893, when Verdi was in his eightieth year. Boito's libretto is a cleverly abbreviated version of Shakespeare's 'Merry Wives of Windsor, with the addition of two or three passages from 'Henry IV. There are three acts, each of which is divided into two scenes. The first scene takes place in the Garter Inn at Windsor.
In the second act Iago advises Cassio to induce Desdemona to intercede for him, and, when left alone, pours forth a terrible confession of his unfaith in the famous 'Credo. This, one of the few passages in the libretto not immediately derived from Shakespeare, is a triumph on Boito's part.
The effect is vastly diverting, especially when Boito's paraphrase of Goethe's Von Zeit zu Zeit seh' ich den Alten gern Und hute mich mit ihm zu brechen. Es ist gar hubsch von einem grossen Herrn, So menschlich mit dem Teufel selbst zu sprechen. is turned into: "Now and again 'tis really pleasant thus to chat with the angels, and I'll take good care not to quarrel with them.
In 1875 it was performed in a revised and abbreviated form, and since then has taken its place among the masterpieces of modern Italy. Boito's libretto reproduces the atmosphere of Goethe's drama far more successfully than any other of the many attempts to fit 'Faust' to the operatic stage. It is a noble poem, but from the merely scenic point of view it has many weaknesses.
It is well to note particularly Boito's metrical device. He seemingly counted much on the effect of incessantly reiterated dactyls. Not only do his Cherubim adhere to the form without deviation, but Helen and Pantalis use it also in the scene imitated from Goethe's Classical Walpurgis Night, use it for an especial purpose, as we shall see presently.
The "Night of the Classical Sabbath" serves a dramatic purpose even less than the scene on the Brocken, but as an intermezzo it has many elements of beauty, and its scheme is profoundly poetical. Unfortunately we can only attain to a knowledge of the mission of the scene in the study with Goethe's poem in hand and commentaries and Boito's prefatory notes within reach.
Now let us turn to Goethe, his commentators, and Boito's explanatory notes to learn the deeper significance of the episode, which, with all its gracious charm, must still appear dramatically impertinent and disturbing. Rhyme was unknown to the Greeks, the music of whose verse came from syllabic quantity. Helen and her companions sing in classic strain, as witness the opening duet:
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