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
Giuseppe Verdi in 1871 "I won't say [Verdi] is an atheist, but he is not much of a believer." Rosselli comments that in the Requiem "The prospect of Hell appears to rule...[the Requiem] is troubled to the end," and offers little consolation. "See also List of compositions by Giuseppe Verdi and individual articles on the works." The writer Friedrich Schiller (four of whose plays were adapted as operas by Verdi) distinguished two types of artist in his 1795 essay "On Naïve and Sentimental Poetry". The philosopher Isaiah Berlin ranked Verdi in the 'naïve' category—"They are not...self-conscious. They do not...stand aside to contemplate