Verdi was 80 when he finished turning Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor into a comic opera. Gatti's 2012 production aimed to draw out its tendernessGiuseppe Verdi was in his late 70s and thinking about retirement when his librettist Arrigo Boito suggested they make an opera from The Merry Wives of Windsor. Verdi had set two plays by Shakespeare before " Macbeth, which was one of his first great successes in the 18…
