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
Characters of Shakespear's Plays of Shakespeare's plays, placing Hazlitt with Schlegel and Coleridge as one of the three most notable Shakespearean critics of the Romantic period. On 26 January 1814, Edmund Kean debuted as Shylock in Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice" at London's Drury Lane theatre. William Hazlitt, drama critic for the "Morning Chronicle" since the previous September, was in the audience. He wrote a stunning review, followed by several others applauding (but sometimes censuring) Kean's performances in other Shakespearean tragedies, including "King Richard II", "King Richard III", "Hamlet", "Macbeth", "Romeo and Juliet", and, what Hazlitt considered the best of Kean's performances, "Othello". (These were