With operas titled Otello, Macbeth, and Falstaff, Verdi surely must have loved Shakespeare.

If there is indeed a Heaven (and let’s not get into that, just now) and if I should be admitted (we can skip over that one too), I would love to organise a colloquium that would be based on Plato’s Symposium, with the addition of a few other choice souls, including Verdi and Shakespeare.