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Carl Otto Ehrenfried Nicolai (9 June 1810 – 11 May 1849) was a German composer, conductor, and founder of the Vienna Philharmonic. Nicolai is best known for his operatic version of Shakespeare's comedy ''The Merry Wives of Windsor'' as '. In addition to five operas, Nicolai composed lieder, works for orchestra, chorus, ensemble, and solo instruments. ==Biography== Nicolai, a child prodigy, was born in Königsberg, Prussia. He received his first musical education from his father, Carl Ernst Daniel Nicolai, who was also a composer and musical director. During his childhood his parents divorced, and while still a youth, early in June 1826, Nicolai ran away from his parents' "loveless" home,〔(Biographical on-line note ) 〕 taking refuge in Stargard with a senior legal official called August Adler who treated the musical prodigy like a son and, when Nikolai was seventeen, sent him to Berlin to study with Carl Friedrich Zelter. After initial successes in Germany, including his first symphony (1831) and public concerts, he became musician to the Prussian embassy in Rome. When Giuseppe Verdi declined the libretto of ''Il proscritto'' by the proprietors of La Scala in Milan, it was offered instead to Nicolai. Later, Nicolai refused a libretto by the same author, and it went to Verdi, whose ''Nabucco'' was his first early success. All of Nicolai's operas were originally written in Italian, the sole exception being his last and best known opera, ''The Merry Wives of Windsor'', written in German. At one time he was more popular in Italy than Verdi himself was.〔John Cargher. "The Italian job", ''ABC Radio 24 Hours'', November 2001, p. 42〕 During the early 1840s, Nicolai established himself as a major figure in the concert life of Vienna. In 1844 he was offered the position, vacated by Felix Mendelssohn, of Kapellmeister at the Berlin Cathedral; but he did not reestablish himself in Berlin until the last year of his life. On 11 May 1849, two months after the premiere of ''The Merry Wives of Windsor'', and only two days after his appointment as ''Hofkapellmeister'' at the Berlin Staatsoper, he collapsed and died from a stroke. On the very same day of his death, he was elected a member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Arts. Nicolai was portrayed by Hans Nielsen in the 1940 film ''Falstaff in Vienna. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Otto Nicolai」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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