Falstaff: English National Opera Guide 10

English National Opera Guides are ideal companions to the opera. They provide stimulating introductory articles together with the complete text of each opera in English and the original. "A lyric comedy unlike any other," wrote Verdi about his last opera. That the last work of a composer who was almost notorious for his preference for tragic and gloomy subjects should be a brilliant human comedy was and remains one of the wonders of music. Michael Rose considers its status in Italian comic op…