Falstaff (opera) knight, Sir John Falstaff, to seduce two married women to gain access to their husbands' wealth. Verdi was concerned about working on a new opera at his advanced age, but he yearned to write a comic work and was pleased with Boito's draft libretto. It took the collaborators three years from mid-1889 to complete. Although the prospect of a new opera from Verdi aroused immense interest in Italy and around the world, "Falstaff" did not prove to be as popular as earlier works in the composer's canon. After the initial performances in Italy, other European countries and the US, the
Dalibor (opera) Dalibor (opera) Dalibor is a Czech opera in three acts by Bedřich Smetana. The libretto was written in German by , and translated into Czech by Ervin Špindler. It was first performed at the New Town Theatre in Prague on 16 May 1868. The opera received criticism at the time for being overly influenced by German opera, including that of Richard Wagner. The subject of the opera is (fl. c. 1490), a Czech knight who took part in an uprising in Ploskovice in support of the oppressed people and was sentenced to death in 1498, during the reign of Vladislas