Opera by GIUSEPPE VERDI, 1893, to a LIBRETTO by Boito. It is based on the character Falstaff, who appears in a number of Shakespeare's historical plays. He is a comic figure, a fat man, bumbling lover, and cowardly braggart.

Falstajff was Verdi's last opera and only his second comic opera. In it Verdi inaugurated a new style, approaching that of MUSIC DRAMA. It ends on a magisterial choral FUGUE with the Shakesperian words, "Il mondo e la burla" (All the world's a stage).