Falstaff is an 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. Falstaff was the last of Verdi's 28 operas, 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 knight, Sir John Falstaff, to seduce two married women to gain access to their husbands' wealth. The premiere was greeted with enormous enthusiasm, but after the initial performances the work fell into neglect: many operagoers felt that it lacked the full-blooded melodies of the best of Verdi's previous operas. The conductor Arturo Toscanini strongly disagreed, and insisted on its revival at La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera in New York from the late 1890s into the next century. The work is now part of the regular operatic repertory. Singers closely associated with the title role have included Victor Maurel (the first Falstaff), Mariano Stabile, Giuseppe Valdengo, Tito Gobbi, Geraint Evans and Bryn Terfel. (Full article...)
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