Otto Carl Ehrenfried [Otto] Nicolai (09/06/1810 - 11/05/1849), a German composer and conductor. A native of Königsberg (Kaliningrad), Nicolai was educated largely in Berlin, through the intervention of a sympathetic patron, and made a name for himself there, without great material success. A period in Rome as organist at the Prussian Embassy aroused his interest in opera, an enthusiasm he was able to pursue at the Court Opera in Vienna, finally, in the year before his death, achieving the position of director of the Berlin Cathedral choir and Kapellmeister of the Berlin Opera. His most famous work is the opera The Merry Wives of Windsor. Verdi's opera Falstaff is based on the same Shakespearian play. Other works by Nicolai include a symphony, a Requiem and a Te Deum.