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 libretto. The Verdis arrived in St. Petersburg in December 1861 for the premiere, but casting problems meant that it had to be postponed. Returning via Paris from Russia on 24 February 1862, Verdi met two young Italian writers, the twenty-year-old Arrigo Boito and Franco Faccio. Verdi had been invited to write a piece of music for the 1862 International Exhibition in London, and charged Boito with writing a text, which became the "Inno delle nazioni". Boito, as a supporter of the grand opera of Giacomo Meyerbeer and an opera composer in his own right, was later in the 1860s critical