CONCERTS

77TH SEASON OF

national gallery of art | june 2, 2019
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PROGRAM Giuseppe Verdi (1813 – 1901), composer

Arrigo Boito (1842 – 1918), libretto

Falstaff (1893)

Act I / Scene I

Falstaff: Gustavo Ahualli

Bardolph: Carlos Feliciano

Dr. Caius: Alex Wang

Pistola: Cody Müller

Act II / Scene I, Aria: “Siam pentiti”

Falstaff: Gustavo Ahualli

Bardolph: Carlos Feliciano

Pistola: Cody Müller

Dame Quickly: Augusta Caso

Guiseppe Verdi, composer

Francesco Maria Piave (1810 – 1876), libretto

Rigoletto (1851)

Act II / Scene: Mio Padre, Aria: “Cortigiani”

Gilda: Alisa Jordheim

Rigoletto: Gustavo Ahualli

Borsa: Carlos Feliciano

Merullo: Alex Wang

Usciere: Carlos Feliciano 

Monterone: Cody Müller 

Act III / Scene I 

Gilda: Alisa Jordheim

Rigoletto: Gustavo Ahualli

Duke: Dominic Armstrong

Sparafucile: Cody Müller

Maddalena: Augusta Caso

New York Opera Society

Daniel Beckwith, music direction

The Evolution of Fools: From Jesters to Buffoons

Presented in celebration of Sense of Humor, a Gallery exhibition that concluded 

on February 3, during the partial government closure. This is the corresponding 

concert, originally scheduled on January 6.

June 2, 2019 | 3:30

West Building, West Garden Court

Alisa Jordheim, soprano

Gustavo Ahualli, baritone

Augusta Caso, mezzo-soprano

Dominic Armstrong, tenor

Carlos Feliciano, tenor

Alex Wang, tenor

Cody Müller, bass

Jackie Wolborsky, violin I

Bruno Pena, violin II

Kyung LeBlanc, viola

Christine Lightner, cello

Michael Rittling, bass

Adele Demi, clarinet

Troy Paolantonio, flute

Caitlin Rain, costume design

Marc Verzatt, stage direction

Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857 – 1919), composer and libretto 

Pagliacci (1892)

Act I / Finale, Aria: “Vesti la giubba”

Canio: Dominic Armstrong 
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THE ARTISTS Beckwith has been heard on the concert stage with Renée Fleming, Benita Valente, 

Carol Vaness, Nancy Gustafson, Marilyn Horne, Frederica von Stade, Jennifer Larmore, 

Denyce Graves, Susanne Mentzer, Nathan Gunn, and Samuel Ramey. His television credits 

(with Ms. Fleming) include Good Morning America, The View, and Martha Stewart Living.

Alisa Jordheim, soprano, has been lauded by the San Francisco Chronicle as “vocally 

resplendent,” possessing “impeccable coloratura.” This season, she makes her role and 

company debut as Gilda in Rigoletto with the San Diego Opera. She also sings Mozart’s 

Exultate Jubilate with the Milwaukee Symphony, Mozart’s Mass in C Minor with the Bel 

Canto Chorus, as well as various concerts with the New Philharmonic and the New 

York Opera Society. 

Highlights from past seasons include performances with the Paris, Florentine, 

Atlanta, Cincinnati, and Boston Midsummer Operas, the Caramoor International 

Music Festival, the Columbus Symphony, the New York Opera Society, the Ensemble 

Pygmalion at Versailles, the Baltimore Symphony, the Grant Park Music Festival, and 

the Las Vegas Philharmonic.

Jordheim is the 2016 Rose Bampton Award winner and the 2015 grant recipient 

from the William Matheus Sullivan Musical Foundation. A graduate of the University 

of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, she has received many awards and 

honors, including an American Scandinavian Foundation Fellowship and a U.S. Student 

Fulbright Foundation Travel Grant.

Gustavo Ahualli, baritone, has been hailed for his rich and powerful voice and is 

well-known for his dramatic portrayals of leading roles in both the standard operatic 

repertoire, as well as new works by contemporary composers. The Houston Press

wrote, “As Macbeth, Argentinean baritone, Gustavo Ahualli, proved he has an ideal 

voice for Verdi, beautiful, full, rich, and powerful. His singing was effortless, with 

excellent control, and ripe with machismo.”

Ahualli has sung at worldwide venues, including Argentina’s Teatro Argentino de 

la Plata, Teatro Colon, and Teatro Avenida, Peru’s Teatro Segura, Italy’s Teatro Lauro 

Rossi, and New York’s Carnegie Hall and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. An avid recitalist, 

Ahualli champions the Argentinean, Latin American, French, and Italian art song 

repertoire. He currently lives in Washington, DC, and serves on the voice faculty at 

the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music at The Catholic University of America.

Augusta Caso, mezzo-soprano, has been hailed by the LA Times as “mysteriously 

smoldering . . . a name to remember,” and by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle as a “silken . . . 

beguiling mezzo” with “fine subtle acting.” This past season, Caso made her Metropolitan Opera debut as a Flowermaiden in Wagner’s Parsifal, and her Los Angeles 

Opera debut in Getty’s Canterville Ghost as First Otis Twin. Recently, she sang the title 

role in Carmen with New York Opera Collaborative. Her future projects include the 

The New York Opera Society (NYOS) develops new audiences for opera by commissioning, creating, and funding distinctive and exemplary productions. To that end, NYOS

serves as a conduit to the public by disseminating important messages, musical inspiration, and seminal artistic performances through partnerships with major performance 

venues, corporations, nonprofits, and governments to present the work of our artists in 

the United States and abroad. 

Last season, NYOS debuted its commission Upon This Handful of Earth (Gisle 

Kverndokk /Aksel-Otto Bull) with Sacred Music in a Sacred Space at St. Ignatius Loyola 

in New York City; performed excerpts of Letters from Ruth (Kverndokk / Bull) at the 

National Gallery of Art; and premiered its new commission by Ricardo Llorca, titled 

Tres Sombreros de Copa /  Three Top Hats, at Teatro Sergio Cardoso in São Paulo, Brazil. 

NYOS annually tours new productions internationally and presents a contemporary opera or new commission in the United States. It also hosts a salon series and 

oversees an international artist-in-residence program and substantive outreach 

programs. Recent highlights include productions of Falstaff and Madama Butterfly 

for its annual festival in Southern France; premieres at the Lincoln Center and Teatro 

São Pedro, São Paulo, Brazil, of its contemporary Spanish opera, Las Horas Vacías, by 

Ricardo Llorca; and three tours and a world premiere of the NYOS’s commission of 

Max and Moritz: A Cartoon Opera in Seven Pranks, by Gisle Kverndokk. Other notable 

NYOS evenings have taken place at the Chicago Cultural Center, the Embassy of Italy, 

New York’s World Financial Center, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, and the United 

Nations, and at numerous European and South American embassies and consulates. 

NYOS has recently been favorably reviewed on PBS and in the Washington Post,

Time, GQ, Opera News, El País, and the Wall Street Journal. NYOS is led by Executive 

Director Jennifer Cho and a dedicated board of directors chaired by philanthropist 

Lesley Silvester.

Daniel Beckwith has conducted in many of North America and Europe’s major opera 

houses. With a repertoire that spans the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries, 

he has been hailed as one of the most exciting conductors of his generation. His debut 

with both the Metropolitan Opera and the San Francisco Opera was Don Giovanni. His 

debut opera with the Lyric Opera of Chicago was Così fan Tutte. He has also collaborated with the New York City, Seattle, Arizona, Cleveland, Portland, Florida Grand, and 

Washington National Operas. In Canada, Beckwith has conducted for the Canadian 

Opera Company, as well as the companies of Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver. His 

international credits include England’s Glyndebourne Festival and Switzerland’s Grand 

Theatre of Geneva.
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Opera. Some of his credits include Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Il Duca di 

Mantova in Rigoletto, Ernesto in Don Pasquale, and Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, as well 

as solo concert performances with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Oslo Symphony, 

and the Erie Philharmonic, among others.

 Feliciano has received numerous awards, notably first place at the Five Towns 

Music and Arts Foundation Vocal Competition, and several grants and scholarships, 

including from the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, the Juilliard School, and the 

Manhattan School of Music. He received his bachelor’s degree in voice performance 

from the Manhattan School of Music and his master of music degree in voice performance and pedagogy from Penn State University. 

Alex Wang, tenor, is a versatile singer with a varied repertoire. His operatic roles have 

included Roderigo in Verdi’s Otello and Le Remandado in Bizet’s Carmen, both with 

One World Symphony in New York City, and Dr. Caius in Verdi’s Falstaff with the New 

York Opera Society, which he is pleased to reprise for this afternoon’s performance.

An accomplished concert soloist, he has sung Bach’s Magnificat, Handel’s Messiah, 

Haydn’s The Creation, Mozart’s Requiem, Brahm’s Liebeslieder Waltzes, Bob Chilcott’s 

Requiem, and Arvo Pärt’s Passio, among others. His eclectic performance history 

includes roles with the American Ballet Theatre, the Mark Morris Dance Group, and 

Dance Brazil; a broadcast of NPR’s Prairie Home Companion from New York’s Town 

Hall; and televised performances singing backup for Celine Dion and Aretha Franklin. 

He can be heard on composer Tania León’s CD In Motion, which received a Grammy 

nomination for Best Contemporary Classical Composition.

Cody Müller, bass, has been described as having a voice that “resonates with authority.” 

Müller’s burgeoning career has taken him across much of the United States and 

Canada to sing with leading orchestras and opera companies. Most recently, he 

was seen with Opera Delaware as the Usher in Trial by Jury. Other notable performances include Alidoro in La Cenerentola, Don Basilio in The Barber of Seville, Jesus 

in Matthäus Passion, and The Four Villains in Les Contes d’Hoffmann. Comfortable 

in both oratorio and opera, Müller has worked with notable companies, including 

Opera Philadelphia, Choral Arts of Philadelphia, Opera Delaware, Baltimore Concert 

Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Central City Opera, Opera Iowa, and Concert Artists 

of Baltimore. Based in Philadelphia, Müller holds degrees from Belmont University 

and the Eastman School of Music.

title role in Laura Schwendinger’s Artemisia with Center for Contemporary Opera, and 

a new creation about Marilyn Monroe by JacobTV at National Sawdust called Able to 

Be/Harper Songs. Caso returns to Amsterdam to reprise Anaïs Nin for this year’s 

celebration of Louis Andriessen’s eightieth birthday. 

In past seasons, Caso performed at the Center for Contemporary Opera, the 

Spoleto Festival USA, and Amsterdam’s Musiekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, where she earned a 

Schaunard award nomination. She sang prominent roles with Opera North, Resonanz 

Opera, Sarasota Opera, and Divaria Productions, and appeared as a concert soloist with 

the Ars Musica Chorale (New Jersey) and the Reading Choral Society (Pennsylvania). 

Caso earned a bachelor of arts degree from Williams College, a master of music degree 

from the University of Oklahoma, and an opera fellowship at the Weitzenhoffer College 

of Fine Arts. 

Dominic Armstrong, tenor, has quickly established himself internationally as an 

artist of superb and distinguished musicality and characterization. A winner of the 

2013 George London Foundation Vocal Competition and a Grand Finalist in the 2008 

National Council Auditions with the Metropolitan Opera, he holds degrees from 

Truman State University, the Juilliard School, and the Curtis Institute.

This season Armstrong performs the role of Macduff in Verdi’s Macbeth with 

the Syracuse Opera. He also appears with the Florida Orchestra for Tippett’s A Child 

of Our Time, the Kaohsiung Symphony for a New Year’s concert, and the Portland 

Symphony for Rachmaninoff’s The Bells. Last season, Armstrong performed in a 

concert tour of Russia under the baton of Mark Mandarano, in celebration of Leonard 

Bernstein. He also joined Curtis on Tour for their annual touring initiative and the 

Milwaukee Symphony for Bach’s Magnificat. He appeared with both the Los Angeles 

Opera and the Center for Contemporary Opera in a double billing of two Gordon 

Getty one-act operas, Usher House and The Canterville Ghost, playing Edgar Allen Poe 

and Duke Cecil of Yorkshire. 

Carlos Feliciano, tenor, is a native of Puerto Rico. He fell in love with opera at the 

age of eleven, when he sang the boy’s solo in the children’s chorus of La bohème with 

Opera de Puerto Rico, sharing the stage with opera greats that included Pablo Elvira 

and Mirella Freni.

DC Metro Arts wrote that Feliciano’s “direct and clear tenor voice is the perfect 

vehicle of his ‘leading romantic man’ persona.” A proponent of new music, Feliciano 

was heard in New York Opera Society’s Supersize Girl and Max und Moritz, by Gisle 

Kvendokk. He served as understudy for the main tenor role in the world premiere of 

El Pasado Nunca se Termina, touring at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the San Diego 
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Our modern-day preoccupation with reality entertainment was foretold by grand 

opera long before the advent of television and media sensationalism. Jesters and their 

antics reveled in ancient civilizations and formed the cornerstone of entertainment; 

they alleviated cares and could verbally win a battle of wits against any opponent. This 

concert explores how jesters evolved from folkloric objects of levity, to those “wise 

enough to play the fool” (Shakespeare), and ultimately to the buffoon who provides 

amusement through inappropriate appearance and behavior.

Ruggero Leoncavallo and Giuseppe Verdi presciently experimented with every 

facet of laughter, satire, and tragedy related to the fool’s transformation from the 

court, to the stage, to modern times. 

New York Opera Society celebrates the National Gallery of Art’s recent exhibition 

Sense of Humor with this concert of excerpts from the masterworks Pagliacci (Leoncavallo), Falstaff (Verdi), and Rigoletto (Verdi), along with original observations by 

renowned opera director Marc Verzatt.

PROGRAM NOTE Caitlin Rain is a costume designer from Dallas, Texas. This is her fourth collaboration 

with NYOS, following Upon This Handful of Earth, Letters from Ruth and The Three 

Lives of Rosina Almaviva. Previous design projects include Coriolanus (Stella Adler 

Studios), Awake and Sing! (Olney Theatre Center), and The Bomb-itty of Errors

(Second Thought Theatre). Her assistant / associate design work includes productions 

with the American Ballet Theatre, the Santa Fe Opera, the Saito Kinen Festival, the 

Boston Ballet, and numerous regional theaters. She has a master of fine arts degree 

from Southern Methodist University.

Marc Verzatt maintains an active career directing opera, operetta, and musical theater 

throughout the United States, South America, and Europe, and is an acting teacher and 

coach in the voice department at the Mannes School of Music.

Verzatt began his theatrical career as a dancer with the Metropolitan Opera after 

studying drama at Rutgers University and ballet with New Jersey’s Garden State Ballet. 

After several seasons as a soloist with the MET Ballet, he left to continue his education 

in production as a stage manager with the Cincinnati Opera and the Lyric Opera of 

Chicago. He made his professional directing debut with a production of Offenbach’s 

Les Contes d’Hoffmann with Opera Columbus. He has since directed opera for Teatro 

Colón in Buenos Aires, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Florida Grand 

Opera, and several companies nationwide. In 2005, he returned to the Metropolitan 

Opera stage for a speaking role in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos. In 2006, he was named 

Outstanding Stage Director of the Year by Classical Singer Magazine. In demand as an 

acting and movement teacher, he has taught and directed at young artists’ programs 

in California, Brazil, and Sweden. This season takes him to New York City’s Blue Hill 

Troupe for The Gondoliers and to Italy’s Perugia Music Festival.
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Falstaff, Act I / Scene I 

Sir John Falstaff, an old, dissolute knight from Windsor, sits in the Garter Inn with his 

“partners in crime,” Bardolfo and Pistola. As they enjoy their drinks, Dr. Caius interrupts 

the men and accuses Falstaff of robbing his house. Falstaff is able to redirect Dr. Caius’s 

anger so that he soon leaves. Falstaff scolds Bardolfo and Pistola for being inept thieves. 

He soon comes upon a new scheme to acquire money — he’ll woo two wealthy matrons 

(Alice Ford and Meg Page) and take advantage of their husbands’ wealth. He writes each 

lady a love letter and instructs his partners to deliver them, but they refuse, claiming 

it is dishonorable to do such a thing. Hearing their hypocrisy, Falstaff kicks them out of 

the inn and finds a page to deliver the letters.

CAIUS: Falstaff!

FALSTAFF: Ho, there!

CAIUS: Sir John Falstaff!

BARDOLPH: Oh, what’s come over you?

CAIUS: You beat my servants!

FALSTAFF: Host! Another bottle of sherry!

CAIUS: You broke down my bay mare, you violated my house.

FALSTAFF: But not your housekeeper.

CAIUS: Oh, thank you! A blear-eyed old hag. Ample Sir, were you twenty times 

Sir John Falstaff, Knight, I should force you to answer me.

FALSTAFF: This is my answer: I did everything you say.

CAIUS: And so?

FALSTAFF: I did it purposely.

CAIUS: I shall appeal to the King’s Council.

FALSTAFF: And God be with you. My counsel is this: be quiet or you’ll make 

an ass of yourself.

CAIUS: I haven’t finished!

FALSTAFF: Oh, the devil!

CAIUS: Bardolph!

BARDOLPH: Doctor!

CAIUS: Last night you got me drunk.

Pagliacci Act I / Finale, Aria: “Vesti la giubba”

In the first act’s finale of Ruggiero Leoncavallo’s unforgettable two-act opera, Pagliacci, 

Canio, a clown and leader of a traveling theater troupe, hears that his wife is having an 

affair. Despite the aloof and foolish roles he plays as an actor, Canio is a serious person 

and highly protective of his wife. Following a performance, he and a few cast members 

go out for a celebratory drink. Canio’s wife, Nedda, stays behind with another cast 

member, Tonio, and someone starts a joke that she stayed behind in order to be 

seduced by him. Canio becomes furious and rebukes his friends for their slanderous 

fun. He believes his wife is faithful and won’t hear otherwise. Meanwhile, as Canio 

drinks with Beppe, Tonio does try to seduce Nedda, but she rejects him and sends 

him away. But he hides instead. Moments later, Silvio, Nedda’s lover, arrives and 

convinces her to elope with him. Tonio runs to the tavern to tell Canio, who then 

rushes back to Nedda, just missing her lover. He demands that she reveal her lover’s 

identity, but she refuses. Beppe talks Canio out of harming his wife and insists that 

they prepare for the next performance. As Canio gets into costume, he sings the 

heart-wrenching aria “Vesti la giubba.”

CANIO: Act! While I’m going mad, 

I don’t know what I’m saying anymore,

Or what I’m doing!

Yet I must, force yourself!

Bah! Might you be a man?

You are Pagliaccio!

Put on the jacket,

And the powdered face.

The people pay, and they want to laugh here.

And if the harlequin flies to you Colombina,

Laugh, Pagliaccio, and everyone will applaud!

Transform the spasms and the crying into jokes

The hiccups and the pain into a smirk, Ah!

Laugh, Pagliaccio,

At your shattered love!

Laugh at the sorrow that poisons your heart! 

TRANSLATIONS AND SYNOPSES
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BARDOLPH: Too bad! What a pain! (letting the Doctor feel his pulse) I am ill. 

Make me a prognostic. My gut is ruined. Cursed by hosts who chalk their wine! 

You see this meteor?

CAIUS: I do.

BARDOLPH: It goes to bed ablaze like this each night.

CAIUS: Prognostic be damned! You made me drink, you rascal, with him (indicating 

Pistola) . . . talking nonsense. Then, when I was drunk, you emptied my pockets. 

BARDOLPH: Not I.

CAIUS: Who, then?

FALSTAFF: Pistola!

PISTOLA: Sir!

FALSTAFF: Did you empty this gentleman’s pockets?

CAIUS: Of course it was he. Look — he’s about to deny it, the lying scoundrel! 

Here I had two shillings of King Edward’s realm, and six half-crowns. There’s not 

a sign of them now.

PISTOLA: Sir, I ask leave to fight him with this wooden weapon. 

(to the Doctor) You lie!

CAIUS: Clodhopper! You’re speaking to a gentleman!

PISTOLA: Simpleton!

CAIUS: Beggar!

PISTOLA: Beast!

CAIUS: Dog!

PISTOLA: Coward!

CAIUS: Scarecrow!

PISTOLA: Gnome!

CAIUS: Mandrake spawn!

PISTOLA: Who?

CAIUS: You.

PISTOLA: Say it again!

CAIUS: Yes!

PISTOLA: By thunder!

FALSTAFF: Eh, Pistola! Don’t go off here! Bardolph! Now, who emptied 

this gentleman’s pockets?

CAIUS: It was one of them!

BARDOLPH: He drinks; then, having drunk too much, he loses his senses. Later 

he comes up with some wild tale he’s dreamed while asleep under the table.

FALSTAFF: You hear? If only you think, you’ll find the truth. The charge is refuted. 

Go now in peace.

CAIUS: If ever I get drunk again at the inn, I swear it will be only with honest, sober, 

civil, pious folk.

BARDOLPH, PISTOLA: Amen.

FALSTAFF: Enough of this antiphon. You are out of time. This is the basic rule of art: 

steal deftly and at the right time. You are clumsy artists.

BARDOLPH, PISTOLA: A . . . 

FALSTAFF: Six chickens: six shillings. Thirty bottles of sherry: two pounds. 

Three turkeys . . . (to Bardolph, throwing him his purse) Look in my purse. 

Two pheasants. An anchovy . . . 

BARDOLPH: One mark — one mark — one penny.

FALSTAFF: Search!

BARDOLPH: I have!

FALSTAFF: Search!

BARDOLPH: There’s not a penny more.

FALSTAFF: You’re my ruin! Each week I spend ten guineas! Drunkard! True, as we go 

from tavern to tavern at night, your blazing nose serves well as a lantern. But what 

I save in oil, you drink in wine. I’ve been watering that purple mushroom for thirty 

years! You cost too much. (to Pistola) And you too. Host! Another bottle! You make 

me lose weight! If Falstaff thins, he’s not himself, no one will love him; in this paunch 

a thousand tongues cry out my name!

PISTOLA: Immense Falstaff!

BARDOLPH: Enormous Falstaff!

FALSTAFF: (patting it) This is my kingdom. I must increase it.

BARDOLPH: Enormous Falstaff!

PISTOLA: Immense Falstaff!

FALSTAFF: But now we must sharpen our wits.
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BARDOLPH, PISTOLA: Let’s sharpen away.

FALSTAFF: Do you know a fellow here in town named Ford?

BARDOLPH: Yes.

PISTOLA: Yes.

FALSTAFF: He’s a rich townsman . . . 

PISTOLA: More generous than Croesus.

BARDOLPH: A lord!

FALSTAFF: His wife is beautiful.

PISTOLA: And she holds the purse strings.

FALSTAFF: That’s the one! Oh love! Starry eyes! A swan’s neck! Her lips? A flower! A 

laughing flower. Her name is Alice. One day as I passed by in her neighborhood, she 

smiled. Love’s fire flamed in my heart. The goddess shone a burning-glass on me, on 

me, on my lusty flanks, my broad chest, my manly foot, my sturdy, upright, mighty 

frame! Desire blazed within her as I passed, as if she would say: I am Sir John Falstaff’s!

BARDOLPH: Full stop.

FALSTAFF: And paragraph. There is still another . . . 

BARDOLPH, then PISTOLA: Another?!

FALSTAFF: . . . named Margaret.

PISTOLA: They call her Meg.

FALSTAFF: She too is taken with my charms. She too holds the keys to the coffer. 

These two shall be my Golconda, my Gold Coast! Look at me. I’m still enjoying a 

pleasant Indian summer. Take these two fiery letters. (He gives Bardolph one of the 

letters from the table.) Take this to Meg; let us test her virtue. Your nose flames with 

zeal. (He gives Pistola the other letter.) And you, take this to Alice.

PISTOLA: I carry a sword. I am no Pandarus. I refuse.

FALSTAFF: Charlatan!

BARDOLPH: Sir John, I cannot serve you in this plot. It is forbidden by . . . 

FALSTAFF: By whom?

BARDOLPH: My honor.

FALSTAFF: Eh, page! (to Bardolph and Pistola) Go hang, but no more on me. (to the 

page) Take these letters, for two ladies, carry them immediately — go, run along! 

(returning to Bardolph and Pistola) Honor! Thieves! You are faithful to your honor, you 

sewers of infamy, when not always can even we keep faith with ours. Yes, even I myself, 

must sometimes lay aside the fear of God and, of necessity, outwit my honor with 

some stratagem, some ambiguity, the better to tack with deftness; and you, in your 

rags, with your crooked leopard’s eye, your fetid laughter, keep company with Honor! 

What honor? What honor indeed? Such chatter! What a joke! Can honor fill your belly? 

No. Can honor set a broken shin? It cannot. Or mend a foot? No. Or a finger? No. Or a 

hair? No. Honor is not a surgeon. What is it, then? A word. What’s in this word? Air, 

which flies away. A fine concept! Does a dead man know honor? No. Does it live, then, 

only with the living? Not even, for it puffs up at flattery, pride corrupts it, slander 

softens it. For me, I’ll have no part of it! No, no, no, no, no, no! But to get back to you 

two bandits. I’ve been patient too long, and now I throw you out. Ho, there! Quick, 

quick! At the gallop! At the gallop! The halter fits you well. Out, get out of here! 

Thieves! Thieves! Out of here!

Falstaff, Act II / Scene I, Aria: “Siam pentiti”

Back in the Garter Inn, Bardolfo and Pistola (secretly employed by Mr. Ford) beg for 

Falstaff’s forgiveness. They announce the arrival of Dame Quickly. She tells Falstaff 

that the two women have accepted his letters without knowing he has sent the same 

letter to them both. Dame Quickly says that Alice, in fact, has arranged a meeting 

between two and three o’clock that very day. Ecstatic, Falstaff begins to clean himself 

up. Soon after, Bardolfo and Pistola introduce a disguised Mr. Ford to Falstaff, who 

tells Falstaff of his burning desire for Alice. Falstaff states that he has already won 

Alice for himself and has a meeting with her later that day. Mr. Ford becomes furious 

and leaves the inn — he is unaware of his wife’s plan to foil Falstaff and believes her to 

be cheating on him. 

BARDOLPH, PISTOLA: We are penitent and contrite.

FALSTAFF: Man returns to his vice like a cat to cream.

PISTOLA: And we return to you.

BARDOLPH: Master, a woman outside asks to be admitted to your presence.

FALSTAFF: Let her in. 

QUICKLY: Your Grace!

FALSTAFF: Good day, my good woman.

QUICKLY: Your Grace! If it please your grace, I should like a word with you, alone.
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FALSTAFF: I grant you audience. (to Bardolph and Pistola) Away with you.

QUICKLY: Your Grace! Mistress Alice Ford . . . 

FALSTAFF: Ah! . . . Well?

QUICKLY: Alas! Poor woman! You are a great seducer!

FALSTAFF: I know. Continue.

QUICKLY: Alice is quite upset for love of you. She sends word that she’s got your 

letter, she thanks you, and her husband is always out from two o’clock until three.

FALSTAFF: From two o’clock until three.

QUICKLY: At that time, your Grace can freely go to lovely Alice’s house. Poor woman! 

Her suffering is most cruel! She has a jealous husband!

FALSTAFF: From two o’clock until three. Tell her that I await the hour with impatience. 

I shall not be wanting in my duty.

QUICKLY: Well said. But I have still another message for your Grace.

FALSTAFF: Speak.

QUICKLY: The lovely Meg (an angel; to see her is to love her), she too greets you 

warmly; she says her husband’s rarely absent. Poor thing! A lily of truth, of faith! 

You bewitch them all.

FALSTAFF: There’s no witchery — just a certain personal fascination. Tell me, the other 

one knows of this other? 

QUICKLY: Imagine! Women are born deceivers. Fear not.

FALSTAFF: Let me give you something . . . 

QUICKLY: He who sows favors, reaps love.

FALSTAFF: Take this, Dame Mercury. My greetings to the two ladies.

QUICKLY: Your Grace.

Rigoletto, Act II / Scene: Mio Padre, Aria: “Cortigiani”

The courtiers describe their abduction of Gilda to the Duke. He is delighted to discover 

that she has been brought to his palace and awaits him in his bedroom. Rigoletto now 

enters, feigning indifference but desperately seeking signs of the whereabouts of his 

daughter. When he realizes what has happened, he curses, but then pleads with the 

courtiers for her return, without success. Gilda appears en déshabillé, and Rigoletto 

swears vengeance on the Duke. 

RIGOLETTO: Courtiers, vile, damnable rabble,

how much were you paid for my treasure?

There’s nothing you won’t do for money,

but my daughter is beyond any price.

Give her back . . . or this hand, though

unarmed, will prove a dread weapon indeed.

A man will fear nothing on earth

when defending his children’s honor.

Assassins, open that door!

The door, the door, assassins, open it.

Ah! You’re all against me!

All against me!

Then I’ll weep. Marullo, my lord,

you whose soul is as gentle as your heart,

tell me, where have they hidden her?

Marullo, my lord, tell me, where have they hidden her?

She’s in there . . . isn’t she?

Isn’t that so? . . . in there? . . . isn’t that so?

You don’t answer . . . alas!

My lords, forgive me, have pity!

Give an old man back his daughter!

To give her back can cost you nothing now,

but to me my daughter is everything.

Lords, forgive me . . . 
18 19

GILDA: Father!

RIGOLETTO: Oh, God! My Gilda! Sirs, she is all the family I have. 

Don’t be afraid now, my angel child . . . (to the courtiers) It was only a joke, wasn’t it? 

I, though I wept before, now laugh. (to Gilda) Why do you still weep?

GILDA: The shame, father!

RIGOLETTO: Good God! What do you mean?

GILDA: To you alone I confess . . . 

RIGOLETTO: (to the courtiers) Off with you, all of you! And if your Duke should dare 

approach, tell him not to enter, tell him I am here.

BORSA, MARULLO, CEPRANO, CHORUS: With children and with madmen, pretense 

is often best. We’ll leave, but still keep watch to see what he may do.

RIGOLETTO: Speak . . . we are alone.

GILDA: (to herself) O Heaven, give me courage! (to Rigoletto) Each holy day, in church, 

as I prayed to God, a fatally handsome young man stood where I could see him. 

Though our lips were silent, our hearts spoke through our eyes. Furtively, only last 

night he came to meet me for the first time. “I am a student and poor,” he said so 

tenderly, and with passionate fervor told me of his love. He went . . . my heart was rapt 

in the sweetest dreams, when suddenly the men broke in who carried me away; they 

brought me here by force, cruelly afraid.

RIGOLETTO: (to himself) Ah! I asked infamy, O God, only for myself, so that she might 

be raised as high as I had fallen. Ah, beside the gallows one must raise an altar! But all is 

now lost, the altar is cast down! (to Gilda) Weep, my child, weep . . . 

GILDA: Father!

RIGOLETTO: And let your tears fall upon my breast.

GILDA: Father, an angel speaks through you and consoles me . . . 

RIGOLETTO: Weep, my child. When I have finished what I must do here, 

we can leave this house of doom.

GILDA: Yes.

RIGOLETTO: A single day has changed everything!

USHER: Open up: Monterone is to go to the dungeon.

MONTERONE: Since my curse has been in vain, and neither steel nor thunderbolt 

has struck your breast, you will live on, O Duke, in happiness.

RIGOLETTO: No, old man, you’re wrong . . . you shall be avenged. Yes, revenge, terrible 

revenge is all that my heart desires. The hour of your punishment hastens on, that 

hour which will be your last. Like a thunderbolt from the hand of God, the jester’s 

revenge shall strike you down.

GILDA: O my father, what a fierce joy flashes in your eyes!

RIGOLETTO: Revenge!

GILDA: Forgive him: and then we, too, may hear the voice of pardon from Heaven.

RIGOLETTO: Revenge!

GILDA: Forgive him!

RIGOLETTO: No!

GILDA: He betrayed me, yet I love him; great God, I ask for pity on this faithless man!

RIGOLETTO: Like a thunderbolt . . . 

GILDA: Forgive him . . . 

Rigoletto, Act III / Scene I 

The Duke has been lured to a remote inn by Sparafucile’s sister Maddalena. Rigoletto 

has paid Sparafucile to kill the Duke and to deliver his body in a sack, so that he himself 

can throw it into the Mincio River. Rigoletto brings Gilda with him to spy on the inn, 

hoping to reinforce the notion that the Duke is not a man of honor in affairs of the 

heart. Gilda is unimpressed. Rigoletto sends her home to change into men’s clothing 

for their flight to Verona. Infatuated with the Duke herself, Maddalena begs her 

brother to spare the Duke and to murder the jester instead. His sense of professional 

responsibility offended, Sparafucile refuses, but does go so far as to agree that if 

anyone else should happen to show up at the inn on this wild and stormy night, he will 

murder him instead. Gilda, returning and hearing all this, sees her chance to help the 

man she loves. She boldly walks up to the door of the inn, knocks, is admitted and 

promptly stabbed and stuffed into the sack for Rigoletto. Later, Rigoletto is just about 

to throw the sack into the river when he hears the Duke still singing in the inn. Wildly 

he opens the sack to find his dying daughter, who with her last breath assures him that 

she will pray for him with her mother in heaven. 

The scene is set at night near the River Mincio. Gilda and Rigoletto are standing on the 

road near a wine shop. The wall of the shop is so full of cracks and holes that whatever 

takes place within is clearly visible from the outside.

RIGOLETTO: And you love him?

GILDA: I love him.

RIGOLETTO: Poor woman’s heart! Ah, the scoundrel! You shall be avenged, O Gilda.
20 21

GILDA: Have pity, my father!

RIGOLETTO: And if you were sure of his lack of faith, would you still love him?

GILDA: I do not know, but he adores me.

RIGOLETTO: He does?

GILDA: Yes.

RIGOLETTO: Well then, just watch. 

GILDA: I see a man.

RIGOLETTO: Wait a moment.

GILDA: Ah, father!

DUKE: Two things and quickly . . . 

SPARAFUCILE: What things?

DUKE: A room and a bottle of wine!

RIGOLETTO: These are the fellow’s habits.

SPARAFUCILE: Oh, the gay blade!

DUKE: Women are as fickle

as feathers in the wind,

simple in speech,

and simple in mind.

always the loveable,

sweet, laughing face,

but laughing or crying,

the face is false for sure.

Women are as fickle . . . 

If you rely on her

you will regret it,

and if you trust her

you are undone!

Yet none can call himself

fully contented 

who has not tasted

love in her arms!

Women are as fickle . . . 

SPARAFUCILE: Your man’s in there. Is he to live or die?

RIGOLETTO: I’ll come back later to conclude our business.

DUKE: One day, if I remember rightly, my pretty one, I met you . . . I asked someone 

about you and was told that you live here. Let me say that ever since, my heart has 

been yours alone.

GILDA: Deceiver!

MADDALENA: Ah! Ah! And of twenty others that maybe you’re forgetting? I think 

my fine young man is a bit of a libertine.

DUKE: Yes, I’m a monster.

GILDA: Ah, father!

MADDALENA: Leave me alone, you scatterbrain!

DUKE: Ho, what a fuss!

MADDALENA: Behave yourself!

DUKE: Be nice to me. Don’t play hard to get. Good behavior doesn’t exclude jollity 

and love. Pretty white hand!

MADDALENA: You are joking, sir.

DUKE: No, no.

MADDALENA: I’m ugly.

DUKE: Kiss me.

GILDA: Deceiver!

MADDALENA: You’re drunk!

DUKE: With love.

MADDALENA: My cynical friend, you like to joke, don’t you?

DUKE: No, no. I want to marry you . . . 

MADDALENA: I want your word of honor.

DUKE: Sweet little maid!

RIGOLETTO: Haven’t you seen enough?

GILDA: The wicked deceiver!

MADDALENA: I want your word of honor!

DUKE: Sweet little maid! 

RIGOLETTO: Haven’t you seen enough? 

DUKE: Fairest daughter of love, I am a slave to your charms; with but a single word you 
22 23

Upcoming Events of the SeventySeventh Season of The William Nelson 

Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin Concerts

Unless otherwise noted, concerts 

are held in the West Building, West 

Garden Court.

Shannon Gunn

Jazz in the Garden, in collaboration with

the DC Jazz Festival

Jazz trombone

June 7, 5:00

Sculpture Garden

Krakauer-Tagg Duo

Connections

Music by clarinetist David Krakauer and 

pianist Kathleen Tagg, as well as Debussy, 

Abraham Ellstein, and John Zorn

June 9, 3:30

Emily Wells, multi-instrumentalist, 

vocalist, and composer

In honor of LGBT Pride Month

June 12, 12:00

East Building Auditorium

Adwela and the Uprising

Jazz in the Garden

Reggae

June 14, 5:00

Sculpture Garden

Inscape Chamber Orchestra

Richard Scerbo, director

The Genius of Paul Hindemith

A program commemorating 

Leonard Bernstein’s famous 

Young People’s Concerts.

June 16, 3:30

General Information

Admission to the National Gallery of Art 

and all of its programs is free of charge, 

except as noted.

The use of cameras or recording 

equipment during the performance 

is not allowed.

Please be sure that all portable electronic 

devices are turned off.

—

Concerts are made possible in part 

through the generosity of donors to the 

National Gallery of Art through The Circle. 

Reserved seating is available in recognition 

of their support. Please contact the 

development office at (202) 842-6450 or 

circle@nga.gov for more information.

—

The department of music produced 

these program notes. Copyright © 2019 

Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, 

Washington

cover Cornelis Dusart, Cereris Bacchique 

Amicus (A Friend of Ceres and Bacchus) 

(detail), 1695, National Gallery of Art, 

Washington, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund

could relieve my every pain. Come, touch my breast and feel how my heart is racing. 

With but a single word...

MADDALENA: Ah! Ah! That really makes me laugh; talk like that is cheap enough . . . 

GILDA: Ah, these are the loving words . . . 

MADDALENA: Believe me, I know exactly what such playacting is worth!

GILDA: The scoundrel spoke once to me!

RIGOLETTO: Hush, weeping can do no good . . . 

GILDA: O wretched heart betrayed, do not break for sorrow.

MADDALENA: I, my fine sir, am quite accustomed to foolish jokes like this, my fine sir!

DUKE: With but a single word you could relieve my every pain.

GILDA: O wretched heart betrayed, do not break for sorrow . . . 

MADDALENA: Ah! Ah! That really makes me laugh; talk like that is cheap enough . . . 

DUKE: Fairest daughter of love, I am a slave to your charms . . . 
NGA.GOV/MUSIC