Falstaff (opera) to think of "Falstaff" as a work that has a certain Englishness. In fact the opera is no more English than "Aida" is Egyptian. Boito and Verdi between them transformed the fat knight into one of the archetypes of "opera buffa"." Verdi himself, however, felt that the Falstaff of the opera is not a conventional Italian "buffo" character, but portrays Shakespeare's fuller, more ambiguous Falstaff of the "Henry IV" plays: "My Falstaff is not merely the hero of "The Merry Wives of Windsor", who is simply a buffoon, and allows himself to be tricked by the women, but also the
Shakespearean problem play Shakespearean problem play In Shakespeare studies, the problem plays are three plays that William Shakespeare wrote between the late 1590s and the first years of the seventeenth century: "All's Well That Ends Well", "Measure for Measure" and "Troilus and Cressida". Shakespeare's problem-plays are characterised by their complex and ambiguous tone, which shifts violently between dark, psychological drama and more straightforward comic material; compare tragicomedy. The term was coined by critic F. S. Boas in "Shakespeare and his Predecessors" (1896), derived from a type of drama that was popular at the time of Boas' writing. It was most associated with the