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
Felix Knight Arwater Kent Foundation Scholarship Auditions of the Air, and made it to Manhattan prior to placing second in the judging. Upon returning to California, Knight sang at the Hollywood Bowl in the Giuseppe Verdi opera "La traviata" alongside Lily Pons, and then traveled to San Francisco, California, where he did Hector Berlioz's "La damnation de Faust" with the city's opera company. Once he returned to Hollywood, he continued voice studying and radio work, including the CBS program "Shell Mountain House" with Raymond Paige and his Orchestra. Knight finally made his screen debut in 1934 in RKO Pictures "Down to Their