Those Italian artists blessed with creative talents and long life really did achieve miracles: Monteverdi wrote his “Poppea” at 75 years of age, while Michelangelo lived until he was 89 - Titzian was 99 when he died - and they both worked until the very last. And Giuseppe Verdi decided to produce one more opera when he was almost 89 years old: Falstaff.
Verdi had fallen in love with Shakespeare’s Falstaff (but even more so with Boito’s),  the wise and amusing clown known to Verdi and Boito among themselves as “Pancione” (Big Belly), the drunkard who can laugh at himself and is well aware that everything in this world is fun - though not always good fun. He had enchanted Verdi. But without the gentle perseverance of Giuseppina, the cunning prompting of Giulio Ricordi, and above all without Boito himself, it is quite possible that Verdi would never have written “Falstaff”. Boito sensed that the time had come for the creation of “Falstaff”: Verdi had achieved the wisdom which was the consequence of a long life full of joy and pain. Sometimes the talk was of a comic opera, perhaps a “Don Quichotte”, but Verdi had always ignored suggestions of that sort. Then, on a journey to Milan, he and Boito discussed the idea behind”Falstaff” - the precise date is not known. In the year 1989, when Verdi and Giuseppina were back in Montecatini, he received Boito’s draft libretto. Verdi was delighted. Although Peter Stein had dreamed for many years of directing musical theatre, it was apparently the outstanding success of his “Othello” for the Welsh National Opera and his experience of excellent ensemble work with that company which prompted him to return to Cardiff, this time in order to stage Verdi’s final opera: “Falstaff”.