- Salieri wrote his two-act opera, Falstaff, in 1798. Carlo Prospero Defranceschi wrote the Italian libretto, based on Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor.
- The opera’s full title is Falstaff, ossia le tre burle (Falstaff, or the three pranks).
- Falstaff premiered in 1799 at the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna. Fun fact – this is the same theater where Beethoven would premiere his Ninth Symphony in 1824.1
- Salieri was a prolific and successful composer in Vienna and wrote ~45 operas. Unfortunately, his works have been doomed to obscurity largely thanks to the popularity of his Viennese colleague, Mozart.2
Sources
- “Falstaff (Salieri, Antonio),” IMSLP, accessed August 6, 2025, https://imslp.org/wiki/Falstaff_(Salieri,_Antonio).
- “Antonio Salieri (1750-1825),” Naxos, accessed August 6, 2025, https://www.naxos.com/Bio/Person/Antonio_Salieri/21143.
Cut IDs
43335