His late opera based on William Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff ossia Le tre burle ( Falstaff, or the Three Tricks ), ( 1799 ) has found a wider audience in modern times than its original reception promised.

Among the most successful of his 37 operas staged during his lifetime were Armida ( 1771 ), La fiera di Venezia ( 1772 ), La scuola de ' gelosi ( 1778 ), Der Rauchfangkehrer ( 1781 ), Les Danaïdes ( 1784 ), which was first presented as a work of Gluck's, La grotta di Trofonio ( 1785 ), Tarare ( 1787 ) ( Tarare was reworked and revised several times as was Les Danaïdes ), Axur, re d ' Ormus ( 1788 ), La cifra ( 1789 ), Palmira, regina di Persia ( 1795 ), Il mondo alla rovescia ( 1795 ), Falstaff ( 1799 ), and Cesare in Farmacusa ( 1800 ).

* Falstaff ( 1893 ), Giuseppe Verdi's last opera, with a libretto by Arrigo Boito.

* Falstaff ( 1799 ), Antonio Salieri's opera, with a libretto by Carlo Prospero Defranceschi, which is also based upon The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Notorious for a life of dissipation and debauchery somewhat similar to Falstaff, he was among the first to mention Shakespeare in his work ( in Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit ), suggesting to Greenblatt that the older writer may have influenced Shakespeare's characterization.

Oxford editor George Hibbard argues that, since the contemporary literature contains many allusions and references to Hamlet ( only Falstaff is mentioned more, from Shakespeare ), the play was surely performed with a frequency that the historical record misses.

Notable among their contemporaries were the cultured and technically adroit French baritones Jean Lassalle ( hailed as the most accomplished baritone of his generation ), Victor Maurel ( the creator of Verdi's Iago, Falstaff and Tonio in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci ), Paul Lhérie ( the first Posa in the revised, Italian-language version of Don Carlos ), and Maurice Renaud ( a singing actor of the first magnitude ).

Arrigo Boito (; 24 February 184210 June 1918 ), aka Enrico Giuseppe Giovanni Boito, pseudonym Tobia Gorrio, was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist and composer, best known today for his libretti, especially those for Giuseppe Verdi's operas Otello and Falstaff, and his own opera Mefistofele.

* Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2 ( Sir John Falstaff ), National ( Olivier ), 2005

His recordings of The Dream of Gerontius ( Sargent ), Tristan und Isolde ( Furtwängler ), Tosca ( De Sabata ), Der Rosenkavalier and Falstaff ( Karajan ), Così fan tutte ( Böhm ) and the core German symphonic repertory ( Klemperer ) have remained in the catalogue for decades, first on LP and then on CD.

* Sir John Falstaff, symphonic poem, op.

Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare.

Mistress Page ( Julie Hughett ) and Falstaff ( John Rousseau ) in The Merry Wives of Windsor, staged by Pacific Repertory Theatre at the Golden Bough Playhouse in Carmel, CA, in 1999

There are several works about Falstaff, inspired by Shakespeare's plays:

* Falstaff, a Hungarian TV movie based on Henry IV, part 1 and Henry IV, part 2, prepared by László Vámos and Péter Müller

* The novel Falstaff by Robert Nye.

The historical Oldcastle was unlike Falstaff ; in particular, he was a Lollard who was executed for his beliefs, and he was respected by many Protestants as a martyr.

Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, whose libretto was also by Boito, was based on Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor and Victor Hugo's subsequent translation.

Falstaff is an operatic commedia lirica in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, adapted by Arrigo Boito from Shakespeare's plays The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV.

Hamburg first saw Falstaff on 2 January 1894, conducted by Gustav Mahler.

Smile | Smiling can imply a sense of humour and a state of amusement, as in this painting of Falstaff by Eduard von Grützner.

* 1893: Falstaff by Giuseppe Verdi

" He points to the example of Verdi's Falstaff, whose musical text contains substantial contributions from the leader of the orchestra of La Scala which were apparently welcomed by the composer.

In 1966 Visconti's luscious Falstaff for the Vienna State Opera conducted by Leonard Bernstein was critically acclaimed.

The original audiences would thus have already been familiar with the title character, who was depicted in the Henry IV plays as a wild, undisciplined lad known as " Prince Harry " and by Falstaff as " Hal ".

Also popular in the UK is Tewkesbury mustard, a blend of mustard and grated horseradish originally created in medieval times and mentioned by Shakespeare ( Falstaff says: " his wit's as thick as Tewkesbury Mustard " in Henry IV Part II ).

One prototype for this version of the town drunk is supplied by Shakespeare's Falstaff, who appears in both parts of Henry IV and in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Another of Gobbi's contemporaries was the Welshman Geraint Evans, who famously sang Falstaff at Glyndebourne and created the roles of Mr. Flint and Mountjoy in works by Benjamin Britten.

File: Eduard von Grützner Falstaff mit Handschuhen. jpg | Shakespeare's Sir John Falstaff by Eduard von Grützner

Sir John Fastolf, the inspiration for Shakespeare's Falstaff, was buried here in December 1459, next to his wife Millicent in a new aisle built by Fastolf on the South side of the abbey church.

* A concert performance in 2008 by Opera Ireland of Balfe's Falstaff was originally broadcast by RTÉ Lyric FM and later released on CD as RTÉ LyricFM LYRICCD119, available from Naxos.

Later years brought performances of Bartok ’ s Concerto for Orchestra, Elgar ’ s Falstaff, Debussy ’ s La Mer and Britten ’ s Four Sea Interludes – pieces which would have been regarded as ‘ unplayable ’ in earlier times.

But he continued to develop his style, composing perhaps the greatest French Grand Opera, Don Carlos, and ending his career with two Shakespeare-inspired works, Otello and Falstaff, which reveal how far Italian opera had grown in sophistication since the early 19th century.

Tynan judged any Falstaff against Richardson's, which he considered " matchless ", and Gielgud judged " definitive ".

And in August 2007, as an RSC Honorary Artist, he returned to Stratford for the first time in over 40 years to play Sir John Falstaff in the Courtyard Theatre revival of Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2 which were part of the RSC Histories Cycle – making him the only British actor to have played Hamlet, Lear and Falstaff in major theatrical productions.

Presented as if it were a live rugby match between York and Lancaster, the ' play ' featured commentary from Falstaff ( Stephen Flett ), which was broadcast live for the audience.

Presented as if it were a live rugby match between York and Lancaster, the ' play ' featured commentary from Falstaff ( Stephen Flett ), which was broadcast live for the audience.

Presented as if it were a live rugby match between York and Lancaster, the ' play ' featured commentary from Falstaff ( Stephen Flett ), which was broadcast live for the audience.

Although he had been a sharer in the plans to construct the Globe Theatre, he appeared in no productions in the new theatre, which was open by mid-1599, and evidence from Shakespeare's Henry V, in which there is no promised continued role for Falstaff, and Hamlet, containing its famous complaint at improvisational clowning ( Act 3, Scene 2 ), indicates some of the circumstances in which Kempe may have been dropped.

Though Falstaff presents some features of an Elizabethan dramatic clown, his character is higher in class and more complex than the other roles with which Kempe is associated.

Eventually the wives tell their husbands about the series of jokes they have played on Falstaff, and together they devise one last trick which ends up with the Knight being humiliated in front of the whole town.

In 1702 John Dennis offered an adaptation ( it has been called a " perversion ") of the play, titled The Comical Gallant, or the Amours of Sir John Falstaff – which flopped.

* The composer Antonio Salieri wrote the opera buffa Falstaff ( 1799 ), with a libretto by Carlo Prospero Defranceschi, which also adapts the main story line of The Merry Wives of Windsor for the operatic stage.

He enjoys insulting his dissolute friend and makes sport of him by joining in Poins ’ plot to disguise themselves and rob and terrify Falstaff and three friends of loot they have stolen in a highway robbery, purely for the fun of watching Falstaff lie about it later, after which Hal returns the stolen money.

He vows to fight and kill the rebel Hotspur, and orders Falstaff ( who is, after all, a knight ) to take charge of a group of " foot "-infantry, to which he cannot resist responding by saying he would have preferred horse-an obvious wordplay on " whores " usually missed by producer and actor alike-and proceed to the battle site at Shrewsbury.

A few dissenters have argued that the Dering MS. may indicate that Shakespeare's Henry IV was originally a single play, which the poet later expanded into two parts to capitalise on the popularity of the Sir John Falstaff character.

" In III, ii, 25-6 of the same play, Falstaff is said to have been a " page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk "— which was true of the historical Oldcastle.

When the First Folio and quarto texts of that play are compared, it appears that the joke in V, v, 85 – 90 is that Oldcastle / Falstaff incriminates himself by calling out the first letter of his name, " O, O, O !," when his fingertips are singed with candles — which of course works for " Oldcastle " but not " Falstaff.