Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff is one of the miracles of musical history; the greatest of Italian opera composers penned this magnificently scored and deeply human work at the age of 80, in 1893, six years after scoring another triumph based on Shakespeare, the towering Otello. With the help of poet/composer Arrigo Boito—who in many ways improved upon Shakespeare's scenes involving the fat, lusty, lustful knight Sir John Falstaff from Henry IV and The Merry Wives of Windsor—Verdi fashioned some of opera's funniest scenes and also some of its wisest. Children get the better of their parents, wives of their husbands—but crafty old Sir John finds a way to get and share the last laugh and turn it on us, the audience. Through all the schemes and games runs a vein of true passion, the furtive phrases and mini-duets of the plot's young lovers, Nannetta and Fenton. Temple University Opera Theater, having won national recognition for excellence, undertakes this evergreen masterpiece. Amidst all of the youthful singing talent, voices of experience will guide the staging. Leland Kimball, the capable general director of Opera Delaware, provides the dramatic direction and Temple's revered music director John Douglas will preside over the orchestra. The work will be sung in the original Italian, but with English-language surtitles.

Falstaff, Temple University Opera Theater, Fri., April 21, 7:30 p.m. and Sun., April 23, 3 p.m., $12.50-$20 (free for Temple students), Tomlinson Theater, 13th and Norris sts., 215-204-7600.