Although Verdi's aim to write the music for an opera based on Shakespeare's King Lear never came to anything, (except that a libretto for Re Lear does exist), Boito provided subtle and resonant libretti for Verdi's last masterpieces, Otello in 1887 (which was based on Shakespeare's play Othello) and then Falstaff in 1893, the composer's second comedy, based on The Merry Wives of Windsor and parts of Henry IV.
Verdi was not present because he had suffered a mild stroke, but sent Arrigo Boito with several requests, partly in writing, for performance details.
Arrigo Boito | Arrigo Sacchi | Arrigo Benedetti | Arrigo Levi | Nerone (Boito) | Linda Arrigo | Camillo Boito | Arrigo Sacchi's |
Born in Verona, he studied music at the Milan Conservatory from 1855 where he was a pupil of Stefano Ronchetti-Monteviti and, as scholar William Ashbrook notes, "where he struck up a lifelong friendship with Arrigo Boito, two years his junior" and with whom he was to collaborate in many ways.