Giuseppe Verdi
Verdi retired in the 1870s. He was a rich man who owned a lot of land. He gave a lot of money to charities, particularly to one charity for elderly musicians. Even in retirement he was persuaded by his publishers to write two more operas. He became fascinated by Shakespeare and he wrote Otello to a libretto by Arrigo Boito. This was a brilliant libretto and it helped him to write a great masterpiece in which every little detail of the story is beautifully described by the music. His very last opera, Falstaff (1893) is based on Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor. Verdi continued to write a few religious pieces in his old age. He died of a stroke in Milan in 1901.