Falstaff

The literary figure of Sir John Falstaff first appeared in the plays Henry IV before and The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare. It is a stout, drinking and up -addicted soldier who is represented in The Merry Wives of Windsor as tending to overestimate themselves and in Henry IV as melancholy. The name of Falstaff is often used for a big show-off and connoisseurs.

The figure was originally Sir John Oldcastle hot and was renamed because of the name similarity with a known knight in Falstaff. The figure of Falstaff was very popular and was taken up by Shakespeare and other authors and composers and processed in our own factories as a comic figure.

In Henry V. Sir John Falstaff and his followers and his household also play an important role in the frame story. We are experiencing here in the royal disgraced, dying Falstaff, who no longer experienced the French campaign of 1415 his king.

Works ( title character )

• Falstaff ossia Le tre burle; Opera by Antonio Salieri (1799 )
• Falstaff; Opera by Michael William Balfe (1838 )
• Falstaff; Opera by Adolphe Adam (1856 )
• Falstaff; Opera by Giuseppe Verdi ( 1893)
• Sir John in Love by Ralph Vaughan Williams ( 1924-28, UA 1929)
• Falstaff - bells at midnight; Collage film by Orson Welles after five plays of Shakespeare

Other musical settings among other titles, see The Merry Wives of Windsor - musical settings