Volume 22, Number 6 · April 17, 1975
Verdi, Shakespeare, and 'Falstaff'
By Robert Craft
Falstaff is not only a masterpiece of opera but, sui generis, both a comedy of pure fun and a great work of art. This combination is an impossibility according to Bergson, who regarded the function of comedy to be the criticism of society and social conventions. Other philosophers argue that the principal targets are human, either moral, such as Molière's hypocrites, or physical, the misfit or freak (Cyrano de Bergerac). It is implicit in most comedy that the audience should feel superior to its prototypes on stage, thinking itself less prone to vice, less vain, less stupid.
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