Falstaff (opera) to think of "Falstaff" as a work that has a certain Englishness. In fact the opera is no more English than "Aida" is Egyptian. Boito and Verdi between them transformed the fat knight into one of the archetypes of "opera buffa"." Verdi himself, however, felt that the Falstaff of the opera is not a conventional Italian "buffo" character, but portrays Shakespeare's fuller, more ambiguous Falstaff of the "Henry IV" plays: "My Falstaff is not merely the hero of "The Merry Wives of Windsor", who is simply a buffoon, and allows himself to be tricked by the women, but also the
Giuseppe Verdi retire, should he have wished to do so. He had reached a stage where he could develop his operas as he wished, rather than be dependent on commissions from third parties. "Il trovatore" was in fact the first opera he wrote without a specific commission (apart from "Oberto"). At around the same time he began to consider creating an opera from Shakespeare's "King Lear". After first (1850) seeking a libretto from Cammarano (which never appeared), Verdi later (1857) commissioned one from Antonio Somma, but this proved intractable, and no music was ever written. Verdi began work on "Il trovatore" after