Otto Nicolai
Otto Nicolai was born in Koenigsberg, Germany, on June 9, 1810. After completing his music study with Zelter and Bernhard Klein, he came to Paris in 1830 where he remained three years. In Berlin he completed several works for orchestra, and some for chorus. In 1834 he went to Italy where he was organist in the Prussian Embassy at Rome and became interested in opera. From 1837 to 1838 he was principal conductor at the Kaerthnerthor Theater in Vienna. Then he returned to Italy to devote himself to the writing of operas, the first of which, Rosmonda d’Inghilterra was a failure when produced in Turin in 1838. His second opera, however, was a major success when first given in Turin in 1840: Il Templario based on Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe; it was produced in Naples and Vienna. In 1841 Nicolai came to Vienna to serve for six years as Kapellmeister to the court. During this period, in 1842, he helped to found the renowned Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1847 he came to Berlin to become conductor of the Domchor. It was here that he completed the work upon which his reputation rests, the comic opera, The Merry Wives of Windsor (Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor). He died in Berlin of an apoplectic stroke on May 11, 1849, only two months after the première performance of his famous comic opera.
The Merry Wives of Windsor (Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor) is Nicolai’s only opera to survive; and its overture is his only work for orchestra which retains its popularity. The opera received a highly successful première in Berlin on March 8, 1849. Its libretto, by Hermann Salomon Mosenthal, is based on Shakespeare’s comedy and follows that play with only minor modifications. Falstaff’s cronies (Bardolph, Pistol and Nym) are omitted; only slight reference is made to the love of Anne and Fenton; and considerable attention is paid to Falstaff’s comical amatory overtures to Mistresses Ford and Page.
The overture opens with a slow introduction in which a flowing melody is given against a high G in the violins. This melody is repeated by several different sections of the orchestra, then treated in imitation. The main part of the overture is made up of two vivacious melodies, the second of which, in the violins, is intended to depict Mistress Page. The development of both themes is in a gay mood, with a robust passage in F minor representing Falstaff. The overture concludes with an animated coda.
From the opera itself come three melodious vocal selections, prominent in all orchestral potpourris: Falstaff’s drinking song, a long time favorite of German bassos, “Als Bueblein klein”; Fenton’s serenade to Anne Page, “Horch, die Lerche singt in Haim”; and Mistress Page’s third-act ballad of Herne the Hunter.