Falstaff (opera) Falstaff (opera) Falstaff () is a comic opera in three acts by the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was adapted by Arrigo Boito from Shakespeare's "The Merry Wives of Windsor" and scenes from "Henry IV", parts 1 and 2. The work premiered on 9 February 1893 at La Scala, Milan. Verdi wrote "Falstaff", which was the last of his 28 operas, as he was approaching the age of 80. It was his second comedy, and his third work based on a Shakespeare play, following "Macbeth" and "Otello". The plot revolves around the thwarted, sometimes farcical, efforts of the fat
Characters of Shakespear's Plays the three witches on the "blasted heath", with which Macbeth struggles, wrestling with his destiny, through to the play's tragic climax. Hazlitt is especially interested in the "design" of "Macbeth", in its general mood, its "full poetic 'impression, and in this, according to John Kinnaird, he anticipates the method of the twentieth-century Shakespearean critic G. Wilson Knight. "Shakespear", writes Hazlitt, "lost sight of nothing that could in any way give relief or heightening to his subject [...]." Further noting Shakespeare's crafting of the play, Hazlitt points to fine touches at the beginning that contribute to a unified effect: "The wildness