verdi opera based on a shakespearean character

Poor Shakespeare!'īut it is impossible to imagine such outraged reactions to an opera based upon 'The Merry Wives of Windsor.' Put simply, it's one of the worst things Shakespeare ever wrote. The latter may explain why Verdi was attracted early in his career to 'Macbeth,' at 2,500 lines, Shakespeare's shortest, simplest and most compact tragedy, and to 'Otello,' whose entire first act can be jettisoned and which has only one important plot.īut there's another factor for the failure of operas based on Shakespeare: the fear of risking comparison with the original.Īfter attending Vincenzo Bellini's 'Capuleti e i Montecchi' ('Capulets and Montagues') in Florence in 1830, Berlioz reported: 'Bitter disappointment! The opera contained no ball at the Capulets, no Mercutio, no garrulous nurse, no grave and tranquil hermit, no balcony scene, no sublime soliloquy for Juliet, no duet in the cell between the banished Romeo and the disconsolate friar, no Shakespeare, no nothing.'Īlmost 40 years later, Verdi read the libretto for Ambroise Thomas' 'Hamlet' and wrote, 'It is impossible to have done worse. Then there are the problems of the overabundance of themes and the complexities of fully developed multiple plots, such as those in 'King Lear,' Verdi's favorite play, which frustrated for 50 years the composer's efforts to turn it into an opera. For one thing, they are so musical in their use of language that they do not need music. There isn't much room for such expansion in Shakespeare's plays.

Verdi opera based on a shakespearean character