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 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