Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (“Merry Wives of Windsor”)

Composer: NICOLAI, Otto
  • Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (“Merry Wives of Windsor”) is a three-act comic opera with libretto by Salomon Hermann von Mosenthal based on the Shakespeare play.
  • The opera is considered to be the first truly German opera buffa and is a masterpiece of the genre. Sadly, Nicolai died just two months after the Berlin premiere in 1849, so the composer would never know the full extent of the opera’s success.
  • Fun Fact – though the opera isn’t among the top performed today, Merry Wives of Windsor was the most successful comic opera written during the first half of the 19th century.1

Sources

  1. Ulrich Konrad, “Nicolai, (Carl) Otto,” Grove Music Online (2001), Accessed August 19, 2022, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000019885.

Cut IDs

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