Verdi's Shakespeare

Pulitzer Prize winner and best-selling author Wills (Lincoln at Gettysburg; What the Gospels Meant) here turns his attention to the three operas by Giuseppe Verdi based on plays by Shakespeare—Macbeth, Othello, and Falstaff. At once scholarly and conversational in tone, the book ping-pongs between the worlds of 17th-century Elizabethan drama and 19th-century Italian opera. Wills brilliantly explores the evolution, development, and performance histories of the three plays (actually, four, counting both Henry IV and Merry Wives of Windsor as inspirations for Falstaff), the three operas, and the connections among them. Verdi was a great lover of Shakespeare, and though he could not read a word of English, he understood the complexity and emotive force of the plays and strove to create compelling works that would do justice to their sources. This meant micromanaging the work of his librettists, collaborators, and singers. In doing so, he redefined the genre with each work.